The Man in the Long Black Coat
by AKs-on-show
Summary: The Doctor and Sophie have survived the Protocol, the Daleks and the Trickster's Brigade. They've visited the towers of New Tokyo and Tuscany in the seventeenth century. But the Doctor has been keeping a secret from Sophie: history records that she died as a five year old in 1996, long before she met the Doctor in 2011. How will the truth come out, and what will it mean for Sophie?
1. Introduction

_There are no mistakes in life some people say  
>It is true sometimes you can see it that way<br>But people don't live or die, people just float  
>She went with the man<br>In the long black coat__  
><em>

**Bob Dylan**

* * *

><p>This story takes place long after any of the Doctor's televised adventures, and features a new incarnation of the Doctor and his new companion, Sophie.<p>

I figured I'd do a bit of an introduction/contents page, so new readers can see how it works and decide which stories to read. If I've done my job, they should all work as stand-alone stories, so you can read as many or as few as you like in whatever order you desire! There's also a story arc which will be easier to follow to if you read from beginning to end, but it's all up to you.

Please review, because there's nothing better than feedback, especially constructive criticism. If you think it's worth it, please recommend the story to others. Most importantly, though, enjoy adventures in time and space!

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><p><strong>'The Forgotten'<strong>  
><em>chapters 2-11<em>

When she was five years old, Sophie Freeman lost her parents in a horrific car accident. Now, she's a young woman without a home, without a family and without much hope for the future. Then, one night, she hears a mysterious noise in the courtyard of her apartment complex... and people start disappearing. Left alone in a world falling apart all around her, Sophie meets the Doctor and must choose whether to join the ranks of the forgotten or be the one to remember them.

* * *

><p><strong>'The Deadly Tower'<strong>  
><em>chapters 12-19<em>

The people of New Tokyo spend their entire lives in the self-contained environments of the skyscrapers that stud the surface of their airless world, but when the Doctor and Sophie arrive they discover a population under siege. The artificial intelligence of the skyscraper has turned against the inhabitants, and the Doctor and Sophie are caught in the middle.

* * *

><p><strong>'Eppur si Muove'<strong>  
><em>chapters 20-27<em>

The Doctor and Sophie travel to Siena in 1633 where they meet Galileo Galilei, languishing under house arrest. But the streets of Siena aren't as safe as they seem; mutilated corpses are turning up all over the ancient walled city, a Vatican investigator has just arrived to investigate rumours of a blood-drenched cult and the Doctor realises that there's an alien presence at work.

* * *

><p><strong>'The Factory Workers'<strong>  
><em>chapters <em>28-35<em>_

Factory planet Ford XVII has been out of contact with the Human Empire for a very long time. The Doctor and Sophie discover that, far from being the entire automated, industrial nirvana they expected to find, the planet's factories and workshops are now manned by downtrodden slaves, policed by the fascistic Security Section and watched over by the mysterious Managers...

* * *

><p><strong>'Weapons of the Daleks'<strong>  
><em>chapters 36-43<em>

As the resistance movement on Ford XVII drives relentlessly towards a violent uprising, despite recent setbacks, the Daleks capture the TARDIS and take Sophie hostage. The Doctor must find a way to rescue his friend, find a way off the factory planet and help the workers to overthrow the ruthless yoke of their Dalek overlords.

* * *

><p><strong>'The Cerberus Protocol'<strong>  
><em>chapters 44-51<em>

The TARDIS is the place the Doctor and Sophie thought safest; their home, their transportation, their sanctuary. When the TARDIS runs aground the Time Vortex and loses power, however, they inadvertently set loose an ancientsecurity program that threatens to break the Time Lock around Gallifrey and unleash the horrors of the Last Great Time War on an unsuspecting universe.

* * *

><p><strong>'In Media Res'<strong>  
><em>chapters 52-59<em>

In the aftermath of their run-in with the Protocol, the Doctor and Sophie are visiting the great repositories of knowledge in the universe. On the way to their final destination, they are knocked off course by a wave of chronon energy and forced to contend with a haunted house and a lost little girl.


	2. The Forgotten: 1

**Historian's Note:** this story, written in twenty four parts, which will be told chapter by chapter, takes place long after the heretofore televised adventures of the Doctor. The bulk of the first part, 'The Forgotten', takes place in Australia in early 2011.

* * *

><p><strong>'The Forgotten'<strong>

_Sophie_

* * *

><p><strong>TAMWORTH, AUSTRALIA<br>MARCH 1996**

* * *

><p>The day was warm, the sun shining. High above, in the endless blue sky, a few fluffy clouds drifted listlessly against the thermals. The little girl watched them. She thought she saw a camel. Or was that a castle?<p>

She heard her parents talking in the front seat of the car. Her father was driving, her mother fiddling with the radio.

Snatches of music and the tinny voices of announcer's occasionally escaped the static, and then her mother found the channel she was looking for, and the comforting voice of a newsreader filled the car.

"As the nation takes to the polls today, Prime Minister Paul Keating reiterated that should his government be re-elected, they would continue their triple campaign of reconciliation, republicanism and engagement with Asia."

Her mother said something, her father responded. She couldn't quite make out what they were saying. She never could.

"Opposition leader John Howard, meanwhile, said that, after thirteen years of Labor leadership, the Australian people were ready for a change, particularly in the face of a flagging economy. Early returns on this election day suggest that Mr. Howard may, by this time tomorrow, be the nation's Prime Minister."

Her father was unhappy about that, her mother unsurprised.

She looked at them, saw the back of their heads, and she felt safe; they were her parents, her mother and father. She knew that this was the last time she'd ever see them.

There was a screech of tires on asphalt as someone slammed on the brakes.

There was a scream. A crash. Metal on metal, splintering, being torn asunder. Shattering glass. The world went black, flew end over end, as the little girl's world turned upside down.

There was a resounding, bone crunching thud. Silence. Then the crackle of flames, the gurgle of liquid; spilled petrol. Blood.

She couldn't see. She knew her parents were dead.

Hundreds of kilometres and fifteen years away, Sophie Freeman woke up.

* * *

><p><strong>NEWCASTLE, AUSTRALIA FEBRUARY 2011<strong>

* * *

><p>"The fact remains," the lecturer announced, as though she were proclaiming the discovery of the Holy Grail, "that <em>Birthday Letters<em> represents more than a mere development of Ted Hughes' writing. It was an active attempt, on the part of the author, to emulate the writing style of his dead wife, and in so doing, invoke her memory."

She smiled knowingly, a Mona Lisa smile, as though she had just ever-so-cleverly stirred a bubbling pot just so.

"Now I know there a few of you in this class who would disagree with me," she said. "I know there are a few of you who would no doubt take great issue with Mr. Hughes as a man, and as a poet, and most especially with this book! But that's why you take Critical Analysis, isn't it? To pull apart the written word, to gaze into the mind of the author; to see what it is that made him write the words he wrote, construct the phrases he constructed. It's a beautiful thing we do here in this class, ladies and gentlemen. Ultimately, our goal is to see the universe that was the author's world, and then to break it down. Collapse it into its parts, and see how those parts all fit together."

The lecture hall was hot. The lecturer, a short, thick woman who had introduced herself as Professor Lancer, knew it was hot; she just didn't care. Down there, she was kept cool by the standing fan beside her lectern. Her class, however, was left to languish in the heat of the hall; an Australian February with a broken air conditioner was a special kind of hell.

Such was the life of an undergraduate, Professor Lancer told herself. She took no small joy from the suffering currently being inflicted on those students, sweltering as they were, knowing that in a few short weeks they'd be inflicting their own kind of hell on her. She'd have to wade her way through dozens upon dozens of terrible and worse, mediocre papers, desperately trying to tap into the meanings of Ted Hughes' somewhat florid poems. And then, after that, they were going to wade headfirst into Shakespeare. She wasn't looking forward to that at all.

Her love for the bard had been diminished by orders of magnitude with every new semester of teaching. She longed for postgraduate teaching, where she could take under her wing a cadre of elite, interested students, instead of this milling posse just dipping their feet in the waters of English language literate.

She looked down, adjusting her glasses as they slipped to the end of her nose, and checked her notes. "Now, your set texts for this semester are _Birthday Letters_, by Mr. Ted Hughes, _The Tempest_ by Mr. William Shakespeare and _Midnight's Children_ by Salman Rushdie. You are also expected to read another Shakespeare play of your own choosing, and another novel. You're to present your choice of play and novel to your tutors in week two for evaluation."

There was an audible grown from her audience at that pronouncement.

She barely suppressed a smirk.

In the mid-level tier of seating, a young woman sat, staring down at Professor Lancer, desperate to get the hell out of the oppressive heat of the lecture theatre. "Old bitch," her friend sitting beside her whispered to her. "I bet she gets off on that stuff."

"What, making us learn?" Sophie Freeman responded, with a grin.

She was a short, slender woman, with shoulder length mousy brown hair and big green eyes, complimented by an easy smile and a willowy frame. Her skin was pale, painfully so for an Australian summer, with a liberal spread of freckles across her nose and cheeks.

"No, making us do all that stuff," her friend moaned, barely bothering to keep her voice down.

Sophie shook her head, but smiled. "Look, Leisel, quit your bitching. This your last year! After this, you've got your degree. Meanwhile, I'll be scraping together credits for another three semesters at least."

Leisel rolled her eyes. "It's not my fault you're on a reduced course load, Soph."

"True enough," Sophie replied, "but if I fail this class because you're nattering at me all semester long, that will be your fault."

Leisel giggled. "True enough, I suppose."

It was only then that the two noticed that the lecturer had fallen silent, and was staring right at them. "Everything okay up there, ladies?" she asked, and there was a titter of laughter through the lecture hall.

Sophie just shook her head, leaving Leisel to absorb the embarrassment of the situation.

"No, um, ma'am," Leisel managed. "We're fine!"

Professor Lancer lifted and eyebrow, and got back to her lecture, leaving Sophie in a fit of silent laughter and Leisel fuming.

"Old bitch," she muttered under her breath.

"If it makes you feel any better, I know for a fact that we've got a copy of _Birthday Letters _in at the shop at the moment," Sophie whispered to her, careful to keep her voice low now that they'd been caught out by the lecturer. "I'll buy it and we can share it."

Leisel smiled. "Always knew there'd be a bonus for befriending a chick that works at a book shop."

"My pleasant company and sparkling conversation notwithstanding," Sophie said with a grin.

"Oh, but of course," Leisel agreed. "What are you doing after class? It's a nice day out. Maybe one of the last chances we'll have to hit the beach until next summer."

"No, sorry, dear, can't make it," Sophie said, refocusing her attention on the lecturer.

"And why's that?"

"Work," Sophie said, and noticed Leisel mouth the word along with her as she answered.

"You work yourself ragged, Soph," Leisel said. "Tell the manager to shove it. Take a day off."

"I need that job, Leisel," Sophie said with a sigh. "It's either work there, or go back to the supermarket, and I've had it with being a check out chick."

"Yeah, fair enough," Leisel said, sighing. "I'll come and visit you, if you like?"

"What, and remind me of all the fun I'm not having?" Sophie said. "Don't worry about it, Leisel. Just go enjoy the summer."

When the class let out, Sophie said goodbye to Leisel and made her way to the university's main bus stop. Somehow, it was even hotter outside. The campus was leafy, and would have been nice and cool were it not almost literally built on a swamp; walking from class to class in summer was running a gauntlet of a mosquitoes and oppressive humidity. She arrived at the stop just as the 100 bus pulled up.

Big, ancient and obviously unimpressed with the heat, the bus was crowded. Packed with sweating pensioners and students. She found a place to stand up the back of the bus, and waited as it rumbled off down the street, away from the university.

This was her life; an hour bus ride from home to uni, forty five minutes from uni to work, then another twenty minutes from work back home. It was an endless cycle. Aside from Leisel and her friends, whom she never really had time to see anyway, her life was this monotony. Sophie Freeman, living in a tiny apartment she could barely afford, working a job that was boring, but not overly humiliating, desperately trying to scrape together enough academic credits for a degree that would probably be useless anyway. No parents, no past. No future.

And so she rode the bus, suffocating in the summer heat, and she wanted for something more.

There was no way she could have known that her life was about to change forever; that the man in the long dark coat was coming, the man that called himself the Doctor, and that nothing would ever be the same again.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> this is a re-post of a story I posted in December of last year. It's been rewritten and refurbished and now looks a whole lot better. I really hope you enjoy the story, both in this first part, 'The Forgotten', and beyond. Any and all feedback you've got would be great.


	3. The Forgotten: 2

**'The Forgotten'**

_2. The Doctor_

* * *

><p><strong>TWENTY THOUSAND YEARS LATER<br>****FOUR GALAXIES OVER**

* * *

><p>The two red giants of the binary system on the third arm of the Aganetha Spiral Galaxy were known, to the Gliknoth tribe of the northern continent on the planet Vrin Valatha, as the Two Colonels. To the Aganetha Mapping Consortium, they were jointly known by an alphanumeric designation eighty-five characters long. To the captain of the intergalactic privateer <em>Prospero<em>, they may as well have been called the End of the Road.

He was about to die.

He knew it. He'd stood on a hundred and fifty different planets, collected Dalek eyestalks for Earth Command, sat in the pilot's chair of a few dozen different starships from fighters no more than six metres long to multi-kilometre dreadnaughts. He was, to put it mildly, experienced. He wasn't ready to die. Not yet.

And yet, impossibly, he was going to.

Luckily for him, his co-pilot, a blue-skinned, tusked, semi-humanoid named Bleeblop wasn't ready to die either. The four-armed man's hands flew over his console. He was fighting to keep _Prospero_together, but the dozens of alarms and klaxons that rang through the dying vessel betrayed his lack of success.

"Come on, boy," the captain told his ship. "Hold yourself together."

He'd flown _Prospero _through the Rim Wars. He'd flown her across the Outer Rings. He'd made the Zellan Clasp in under thirty seconds. He'd been proclaimed a hero in seven systems, a war criminal in nineteen. His name was Samson McCluskey, God damn it, and he wasn't going to die here.

"Who are you kidding, Sam?" Bleeblop said. "This is it. We're going to fry."

McCluskey shot his co-pilot a dirty look. "You just keep those stabilisers online."

They'd been evading a Zellan Death Flight by taking the scenic route through the Kron Nebula when one of their commandants had gotten lucky. It'd been a hair-raising flight through the blockade, but they'd made it, the Zellans hot on their heels. McCluskey had finally escaped them, but only by coming out of hyperspace far too close to the Two Colonels. Most of his systems had been burnt out in a few seconds, and all of a sudden he was flying a crippled ship against the gravity of a pair of red giants.

"It's a losing battle, Sam," Bleeblop said, but didn't stop his work. He was too much of a professional for that, and too much of a dogged, stubborn fool to dare give up.

"We've been in losing battles before," McCluskey responded.

"Yeah, and we've lost every time."

"Shut up!" McCluskey said, not without a certain fondness in his tone. He was pulling the controls up hard, fighting to keep the ship stable. He was desperate to break gravity's hold on the old tug.

"Radiation's spiking!"

"Come on, _Prospero_, keep it together!"

"We're pushing the heat tolerances! I'm about to lose the rear compartments!"

Samson closed his eyes. He'd grown up on a farming colony in the Home Galaxy, a nameless grainworld among dozens of nameless grainworlds. He'd had a good childhood, underprivileged but still happy, his mother and father devoted members of the Grand Church of the Hateful Crone. He himself had never been a believer, but even so he now found himself praying to the Crone, begging Her to lift Her craggy, wrinkled head from Her Grand Tapestry and bestow upon him, a non-believing vagabond, one small moment, one brief, passing second, of grace.

His ship, which a second ago was shaking itself apart, suddenly stopped shaking. It seemed to stop moving all together. The high-pitched whine of its engines silenced. The alarms stopped blaring.

Samson McCluskey had never been so surprised in all his years amongst the stars. "Was that you, ma'am?" he meekly asked the Crone, his eyes still squeezed tight.

"What are you talking about?" Bleeblop asked him.

He opened his eyes.

"Am I dead?"

"If you were dead, you probably wouldn't be talking," Bleeblop said without a hint of mirth. "We're not dead. Something's got us in a tractor beam."

McCluskey considered docking the rude bastard's pay. "Well, what's got us?"

"I have no idea," Bleeblop said, bringing their saviour up on screen. It was… tiny. McCluskey had seen cargo crates bigger than that. He'd flown ships whose cannons had been three times again as wide as whatever it was that was flying alongside _Prospero_.

"That's what saved us?" McCluskey erupted, shocked. "But it's minuscule! How is it not being torn apart?"

"Whatever it's using to stabilise us is about ten times more powerful than this bucket's reactor's yearly output," Bleeblop said, the awe in his voice quite apparent.

"But… it's small. It's wooden. It's blue!" McCluskey said, unable to believe his eyes.

"And it's hailing us," Bleeblop reported.

"Well, put them through, man!" the captain ordered. The image on the screen shifted, the small blue box vanishing. It was replaced by a man's face. He looked to be human, but if McCluskey had learnt one thing in his time out in space, it was never to take anything at face value. Like a small blue box that was apparently capable of putting out several orders of magnitude more power than his beloved starship. So, like all good men of the spacelanes, his greeting was suspicious and perhaps a little too hostile. "Who the hell are you?"

"Wonderful way to say hello to the man that just saved your life," their saviour said with something like a roguish grin. "I'm the Doctor."

"The ship's doctor?" McCluskey said, unimpressed. "Can I speak to your captain, please?"

"No, no, I _am_the captain," the man insisted. "That's my name. The Doctor. This is my ship."

Samson McCluskey blinked, and asked flatly "_That's _your ship?"

The man, the Doctor, just smiled. "I'm pulling you out of the binary pair's gravity field. It should take you a few days to limp to a repair facility."

McCluskey was surprised. "You're just going to let us go?"

"Hmm?"

"Nobody does something for nothing."

The man considered for a moment, before saying "That's true. Well, Captain Samson McCluskey of the intergalactic privateer_ Prospero_, next time you see a blue box on your doorstep, next time you hear that the Doctor has come to call, just know that I'm calling in a favour."

McCluskey was dumbstruck, but Bleeblop managed a question. "Who…" he began, before correcting himself, "_what _are you?"

The man grinned, eyes twinkling. "Just your friendly neighbourhood Doctor." Just before he switched off the transmission, McCluskey got a look over his shoulder, and found himself staring at a cavernous space.

"Are you really in that blue box?" McCluskey asked, all pretence of the hostile privateer captain lost.

The man winked. "It's bigger on the inside."

The man, the Doctor, reached down, pulled a lever, and the transmission cut out. On the small screen, the blue box was turning on its central axis slowly. The light atop it began to flare, and then, a moment later, it was gone.

"What the hell was all that?" Bleeblop asked, but Samson McCluskey had no answer.

* * *

><p><strong>NEWCASTLE, AUSTRALIA<br>****FEBRUARY 2011**

* * *

><p>"Good afternoon," the old man behind the counter of Bakers Hill Books said with a smile as Sophie Freeman entered the little store.<p>

"Good afternoon, Mr. Rosetti," she said with a smile.

Bakers Hill Books took up the interior of a converted terrace house in the suburb of Bakers Hill, just off the street that dominated the business and commercial life of the district. Bakers Hill was somewhat of an oddity among the fashionable coffee houses and pricey boutiques of the street, but it was a mainstay, a constant. The house it was built in was tiny, from wall to wall packed with shelves, which in turn were packed with books; new books, second-hand, rare, obscure, unheard of, critically beloved and universally reviled. In the back were the magazines and records, upstairs was a reading room and even more books.

Thousands upon thousands.

To Sophie, this place was better than home. Ever since she'd moved to Newcastle after finishing high school, she'd loved the old place. She never knew what she'd find there, which old magazine she could pick up for fifty cents and then return, which old novel she'd find tucked away, on sale for a couple of bucks. She'd been desperate for a job there, even when she'd actually somewhat enjoyed stocking shelves and swiping credit cards at the supermarket, and she'd given a copy of her resume to the manager, Mr. Rosetti's husband. A few months later, she'd gotten a call.

She'd worked there for six months, and it was boring for the most part. Infinitely better than her last job, and probably the best job she could hope for, but the small business was tucked out of the way and didn't have air conditioning. It wasn't that much of a problem in the winter, spring or autumn, but at the height of summer it was torture.

Still, if Mr. Rosetti, a seventy year old Italian bloke and his tiny nonna of a wife, could handle it, so could she.

She took over from Mr. Rosetti, who went off home, and she spent her day behind the counter, with only the small electric fan on the counter keeping her cool. It didn't do a very good job of it.

The customers were few and far between which was fine by her. She spent the free time going through the completely unorganised poetry section, trying to put it into some semblance of order, hunting out the copy of _Birthday Letters _she was sure was in there somewhere.

In the process, she uncovered a positively ancient edition of _The Tempest_. Hardback, with an engraved image on the inside cover, the yellowed pages of the book seemed to cry out to her. She'd spent a life being shuttled between foster homes. Her foster parents had all, to a one, been great people, but she'd never had anything approaching stability. Four schools, half a dozen foster brothers and sisters, none of whom she kept in contact with. A few friends at school, but no one she'd been particularly close with.

She'd worked hard, put in the effort, and been rewarded with a small scholarship to attend Newcastle University. It was enough to get her set up in a new city, but then she'd had to find a job. She'd done the fast food thing in high school, and she wasn't going back there, so the supermarket it had been.

Now here.

Stability was a rare thing for her. She'd been on the move ever since that car crash fifteen years before, when her parents had died, and she'd really only had fiction to count on. Books, the adventures and friendships they promised, had been her redoubt, what she'd fall back on amongst the chaos of her unanchored life.

She put the book to one side, and finally found the dog-eared, much annotated copy of Birthday Letters she knew had been lurking around here somewhere.

The rest of the day went by quickly enough, and at six o'clock, with the sun still high, she shut up, locked the door and went off to the bus stop, carrying _Birthday Letters_ and _The Tempest _like newborn children. The bus took only a few minutes, and was just as crowded as it had been earlier in the day. Thankfully, the heat was starting to bleed from the day, and the relatively short ride to her apartment

Her building was ancient, a four story art deco monstrosity from the twenties, built around a small garden courtyard. She lived on the third floor, in a three-room apartment looking down onto the courtyard.

She'd lived here for a few years now, but she hardly knew any of her neighbours, just the old couple that lived across the way. Mr. and Mrs. Francis were lovely, polite and kind, even if a little aloof. As she reached the third floor corridor, she saw Mr. Francis just stepping out of their apartment. He offered her a smile, and inclined his head slightly.

"Ms. Freeman," he said, the consummate gentlemen. Despite the heat, he was dressed to the nines, with a shirt, tie and jacket. Even, Sophie noticed, cufflinks and a hat.

"Mr. Francis," she greeted in return. "How's Mrs. Francis?"

Mrs. Francis was largely wheelchair bound these days, and Mr. Francis spent most of his time caring for his wife. She'd seen the way he spoke to her, stroking her hair. Though he'd always treated Sophie with a kind of respectful indifference, the way he cared for his wife was touching beyond words, and she had nothing but respect for him.

"She is well, dear," Mr. Francis said, and bid her farewell, heading for the elevator.

The elevator, ancient, loud and rickety, was Sophie's arch nemesis. She'd been trapped in there twice in her first month of residence, and even though it had since been repaired and, by all accounts, now worked perfectly, she'd sworn it off. She took the stairs.

Retrieving her key from her shoulder bag, she opened her apartment door and stepped inside. The room was stuffy and hot, but it felt good to be home. The main room of her apartment was a living-dining area and a connected kitchenette. She didn't have an oven, just a microwave and stovetop, and a second-hand fridge from the late eighties.

No dining table, just an IKEA coffee table and a two-seater couch she'd picked up at a garage sale for a hundred bucks, facing a TV her last foster family had bought her for finishing high school.

Other than that, there wasn't a single piece of furniture in the room. She didn't even bother with a phone, using the university internet and her iPhone. Her bedroom was an entirely different affair.

A queen-sized bed, a pair of bedside tables, a desk with a laptop sitting on it and piles of magazines and books, CDs and DVDs.

She threw her two new books onto her bed, and stared down at the courtyard. No one was out there, but the four deck chairs that had been there since she'd moved in still were. The courtyard as a nice little cobblestoned area, even if its concrete planter boxes were a little overgrown, and her bedroom window gave her a great view.

With nothing else to do for the night, she grabbed _Birthday Letters _and turned on the TV, settling down on the couch to read.

* * *

><p><em>The car; that day, again, in 1996. She could hear the radio, the announcer discussing the election. Keating or Howard? The day was flying past her window, her parents were talking, and six year old Sophie Freeman knew that she wasn't six, that she wasn't really in the car.<em>

_She was dreaming._

_The same dream she'd dreamt every night for as long as she could remember. She was about to watch her parents die all over again._

_She heard the screeching of wheels as someone stepped on the brakes too late. She heard the crush of metal on metal, the shattering of glass, and she tasted the adrenalin in her mouth. The world went upside down and then it stopped and she was still spinning._

_They were dead. She knew it without thinking._

_They'd been dead for fifteen years._

_She heard the gurgle of blood, of spilt petrol from a broken tank, and past that the silence of a day broken by death. Then, in the distance, a new sound. It was a strange, mysterious noise, a grinding, deep-in-the-gut wheezing. The sound of the universe._

* * *

><p>Sophie Freeman's eyes snapped open.<p>

She leapt to her feet, knocking aside the half-finished bowl of mi goreng she'd had for dinner. She had fallen asleep on the couch. The TV was still on, playing an infomercial for a product she recognised from an ad on the bus.

Shaking her head, she went to the kitchenette for a drink.

That noise… she'd had that dream so many times over the last fifteen years. Grief counsellors, psychologists, concerned foster parents had all tried to help her stop having them, but the dreams had kept coming back. There had been small variations before. Sometimes she heard her parents, sometimes she didn't. Sometimes she felt someone pull her from the wreckage of the car, and sometimes the flames reached her.

She'd never heard that noise before.

Quickly downing a glass of water, she went to her bedroom. The clock radio on her bedside table told her it was three a.m. She only had four hours before she had to be up to go to uni, but she was bone tired.

As she passed the window, something made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end.

She turned, and looked down into the courtyard. She gasped.

Down there, beside the overgrown planter boxes and on top of the deck chairs, which had been turned into so many matchsticks, was a big blue box. Smoke rose from it as if it were on fire, but through the smoke she could make out a light on top, and glowing words set into the upper third.

"What the hell is that?" she whispered to no one.

From where she was standing, it looked like it was made of wood, and resembled nothing so much as a phone box. That was too weird not to investigate, she decided, and still dishevelled from her impromptu couch sleep, she dashed to the door and then down the corridor. For the first time in months, she stopped in front of the elevator and hit the button.

As the tiny cabin descended, Sophie was suddenly overwhelmed by a headache. The pain exploded in both temples, white hot agony that burned through her brain. For a moment, she couldn't see.

A second later, the pain subsided, and the elevator doors opened, depositing her on the ground floor.

Shaking off the last of the pain, she moved from the elevator, towards the courtyard. She stepped out into the cool, summer's night air, only to find the courtyard looking exactly as it had in the afternoon. The deckchairs, which looked to have smashed to bits by that blue box when she'd been in her apartment, were still sitting there.

Confused, Sophie lifted an eyebrow, turned around, and went back upstairs to bed.


	4. The Forgotten: 3

**'The Forgotten'**

_3. Mr. and Mrs. Francis_

* * *

><p>If she had dreams after she went back to bed, Sophie didn't remember them when she woke up in the morning. Sunlight was streaming in the window of her bedroom when the clock radio came to life at exactly seven o'clock, assaulting her sleep-addled mind with the inane chatter of Newcastle's premier breakfast radio hosts.<p>

Slapping the snooze button, she waited beneath the sheets for a few moments, putting herself together. When the alarm went off again, she was out of bed like a shot, knowing that if she stayed any longer she'd end up falling asleep again. She was so tired that her arms and legs ached with fatigue, and her eyes were dry and sore. The back of her throat tasted terrible.

It was rare that her morning ritual varied in the slightest. Straight out of bed into the bathroom for a shower, the creaking of the ancient pipes heralding a rush of hot water that properly woke her up, before getting dressed, making herself a quick breakfast and then cleaning her teeth, just in time to be out on the street for the bus.

That morning, however, everything seemed to take longer than usual. Or, she thought to herself, time just seemed to be passing her by faster than it usually did.

Maybe it was because she kept staring from her bedroom window down into the courtyard. She hadn't even noticed she'd been doing it until the third time she caught herself looking, her heart catching in her throat. The deck chairs, crushed to splinters the night before, were still intact; it must have been a dream, she told herself, but she couldn't bring herself to believe that simple platitude. It had seemed so real, so certain.

Could she really have dreamt up the appearance of the blue box the night before? She'd fallen asleep on the couch, sure, had a drink of water… but after that, she wasn't sure what had actually happened and what she'd imagined, what figments her imagination had cooked up.

She did, however, remember that sound; the scraping, wheezing groan, ancient. Even the thought of that noise made the hair on the nape of her neck stand on end, sent a chill down to her very bones, despite the heat of the rapidly warming day outside.

She opened her window to let the breeze in, and the scrape of the wood set her teeth on edge.

Glancing at the clock, she realised she was out of time. Forgoing breakfast, she crammed her laptop, books and wallet in her bag and then she was off. Out the front door, down the stairs of her apartment building, and into the foyer. She bumped past one of her neighbours taking out letters from his mail slot, and then stepped through the glass-fronted double doors onto the building's raised doorway. A few steps down to the pavement, then a short walk up the street to the bus stop, little more than a sign on a metal pole.

Already waiting there was Mr. Francis, as stately and resplendently dressed as usual. Most mornings he went into town to take care of errands while he left his wife in the capable hands of her day nurse.

"Good morning, Mr. Francis," Sophie said, not as brightly as she'd intended.

Mr. Francis cast her his customarily appraising eye, before inclining his head. "Good morning, Sophie."

"How's Mrs. Francis?"

Even as she asked the question, a bus turned the corner into the street and began powering up the road towards them. She reached into her bag, pulling out her wallet, as it coasted to a stop. Mr. Francis, though, seemed not to have even noticed the bus, and was still staring at her in confusion.

"Hmm?" he intoned, as if for clarification.

Sophie was confused. "Your wife, Mr. Francis? How is she?"

"I don't know what you mean, dear," he said, just as the driver opened the bus doors. The elderly man got aboard, leaving Sophie gaping in his wake.

How could he have forgotten her? His own wife. The thought that dementia had gotten a grip on the regal old gentleman was too sad for Sophie to even consider, but she couldn't help but acknowledge the possibility. She chalked it up to confusion on his part, tiredness, maybe even some sort of weird game that had been all the rage in the forties.

Following him aboard the bus she noticed that, for the first time in weeks, it wasn't full to bursting. As she handed her money to the driver, flashing her student concession card in the process, she asked "Is everyone sick?"

"Sorry, love?" the driver asked.

"It looks like I might actually be able to get a seat today," she replied.

The driver shrugged. "It's been a pretty normal morning."

Shaking her head, she took her ticket from him and made her way up to the back of the bus. She chose a seat, placed her head against the cool glass of the window, and felt the vibrations of the engine as the bus trundled down the street on its way towards town, and past that, the university.

First thing that morning at uni was the second Critical Reading lecture of the week. Why that class needed two two-hour lectures was utterly beyond her, but she was scared enough of Professor Lancer not to try and skip it, especially this early in the semester and especially after Leisel's little display the day before.

The trip usually took an hour, but it felt like barely twenty minutes before she was pressing the button to get the bus to stop.

She took her phone from her bag and texted Leisel, asking her if she'd arrived yet. Leisel, notoriously lazy when it came to replying to messages, seemed to be on her game, the reply coming almost immediately.

Sophie rushed off to meet her friend, who was enjoying an early morning coffee at the uni's tiny, homely café. Joining Leisel at one of the picnic tables outside the small building, she smiled. "How's it going?"

"Not bad, not bad," Leisel said, sipping at her coffee. "How was work?"

"The usual," Sophie said. "I did find two of the books we need for this class though. _Birthday Letters_ and _Tempest_."

"Oh, cool," Leisel chirruped. "How much do I owe you?"

Sophie shook her head. "Nothing. I put some money in the till yesterday for them. I'll lend them to you, but just remember that they're mine."

Leisel laughed. "You already have too many books in your place, Soph."

Sophie had to agree. "How was the beach?"

"Eh?" Leisel asked, lifting an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

Sophie blinked. "Didn't you say you were going to the beach yesterday? After class?"

Leisel considered, and then stared off to the side, as if confused. "I suppose I did say that."

"So you didn't go?"

"I guess not," Leisel said, sounding as though she was admitting something to herself. Her brow was crinkled; she was thinking hard on something. "I can't actually remember what I did yesterday. I remember being here, in class with you… and then I remember you texting me."

"Jesus, Leisel, how much did you drink last night?" Sophie teased, but she couldn't ignore that nagging voice of concern at the back of her mind.

Leisel laughed, snapped out of her confusion. "Ha, you can be a bitch."

Checking her phone, Sophie saw that they didn't have long to get to class. "Come on, we'd better go. If Lancer has any idea who we are, she's probably gunning for us after your little display yesterday."

Leisel blushed. "Yeah, fine. Come on."

The lecture hall wasn't nearly as full as it had been the day before, and was thankfully much cooler. They found seats fairly close to the front, on Sophie's insistence, so they'd be more likely to pay attention. She pushed aside the competing notion that they'd be more likely to be caught when that attention inevitably waned.

As the minutes dragged on, and more and more people filed into the hall, Sophie was sure the class was a lot smaller than it had been yesterday. "God, how many people did Lancer scare off?" Sophie asked Leisel, who was busy poking through the copy of _Birthday Letters_Sophie had found.

"Huh?" Leisel asked.

"Yesterday this place was packed," Sophie insisted. "We barely got seats, remember? Now look at it."

Leisel said, her tone non-committal, "Yeah, I suppose."

Sophie frowned, but decided to drop it. What was happening? It felt like time was slipping away from her, like things were happening too quickly. That wasn't all that was bothering her thought. First, Mr. Francis seemed to have no idea who his wife was, and now here she was, in a class that had been packed the day before only to find that the enormous lecture hall was not even at half capacity. Leisel had been adamant about going to the beach, and now she didn't even properly remember saying that. The bus ride had been so short, too, and she'd gotten a seat. She barely remembered ever landing a seat on that damn thing before.

What was happening?

"Leisel," Sophie said, touching her forehead with the tips of her fingers, "I think I'm getting a headache."

"Are you all right?" Leisel asked, but even as her friend spoke Sophie felt the white-hot explosion of pain radiating out through her skull from her temples. Leisel asked her something else, but the question was lost in a burst of pain that seemed to drown all other perceptions out.

Then, as quickly as it started, it stopped.

Professor Lancer was up at the lectern, the projection screen behind her active, and all the students in their seats. Leisel was looking at her with concern, but that was the only continuity; everything else around had seemed to change. It was though a few minutes had just vanished.

She noticed Leisel's mouth was moving, and in a rush all other perceptions came flooding back to her. Sophie gasped, as she heard her friend ask "What's wrong?"

Sophie just shook her head, and stood up from her seat. She was moving, suddenly, propelling herself faster and faster towards the nearest exit. Dashing down the corridor, she found the ladies' room and burst inside, barely making it to a stall before she vomited.

Kneeling on the tiled floor, she hacked and spat, trying to get the taste out of her mouth.

She felt, rather than heard, Leisel enter the stall behind her.

"God, Soph, are you all right?"

Sophie just managed to shake her head before another wave of nausea overwhelmed her. This time, she managed to retain control of her stomach long enough to look up. She noticed that Leisel had grabbed her bag for her and was carrying it. "I don't know," she said, honestly. "I just feel… I don't know."

Shaking her head, Sophie leant back, and Leisel helped her to her feet. "Come on, have some water."

Leading her over to the sinks, she turned on the cold tap, and Sophie was only too glad to feel the water pour over her outstretched hands. She splashed her face and had a quick drink.

"And you were having a go at me for how much I drank last night," Leisel teased, her tone gentle.

Sophie couldn't help but smile. "Thanks, Leisel. I don't suppose we've done much to get our stocks up in Lancer's book."

Leisel frowned. "Who?"

Sophie blinked. "Our professor? I just left her class?"

Leisel shook her head. "Look, don't worry about that. Here, take your bag. We've got to get you home, Soph. You're obviously not well at all."

Sophie sighed. "I can't just skip a class, Leisel, and I have work this afternoon."

Her friend grimaced. "Come on, Soph, I think your manager would understand if you begged off work today, huh? I mean, you're pretty clearly sick. They can't expect you to sell dusty old books all afternoon on a day like today if you're like this… you probably got sick because of that shop, anyway. Can you imagine all the mould and germs and stuff that are floating around in there?"

"They're depending on me, Leisel, and I need the money," Sophie said. "You're right, though. I'll go home now, have a rest. I'll be right for this afternoon."

"Are you sure?" Leisel asked, watching her with worry plain in her eyes. "You've been running yourself ragged for so long now, it can't be good for you at all."

Sophie laughed. "No, I suppose it's not."

"We didn't even go out for your birthday last month," Leisel added, as she helped her friend out of the bathroom. "Come on, I'll drive you home. Here's some gum, by the way. Figured you might need it."

Sophie took the proffered stick of gum, if only to get the taste of vomit out of her mouth. "I can't let you miss a class for me."

"Oh please, Soph," Leisel said with a sigh, "like I give a shit."

Leisel's car would have already been old when Sophie had been born. Blue, damn near falling apart, its engine roared with reluctance whenever it was started and it resisted every change of gear. Still, Leisel loved the rust bucket, and Sophie couldn't blame her. There was something homely and dependable about the thing, despite the near-constant oil changes and the number of near-disastrous breakdowns they'd survived.

Sophie settled into the passenger seat as Leisel drove, and stared out the window. Until she was about ten, car rides had terrified her. Even seeing a car go down the street had been enough to frighten her.

Years of grief counselling and therapy had helped her get over that particular anxiety, which she'd been told wasn't unusual considering what had happened to her parents. She had a family photo album stashed somewhere in her aparment, but "family" might have been a stretch. After all, it was only ever just the three of them in the pictures. Mother, father and baby Sophie.

As the car drove, she thought about the pictures she'd always studied so intently. Her mother, vivacious, happy, with Sophie's curly brown hair. Her father, balding, tall, with her brilliant green eyes. Little Sophie sitting on their laps, hugging them, playing with blocks on the red shagpile rug that had been in their living room. They'd both been only children, their parents long dead, and they themselves had been just barely young enough to have kids. Sophie had been their miracle baby. Twice over, she realised as Leisel's car rumbled through the Newcastle streets.

Sophie remembered the feel of that rug against her little hands. She remembered those blocks. She even remembered, through flashes of perception and emotion, the joy with which her mother had reacted when she'd managed to stack them the first time.

She remembered so little about her parents beyond the basic statistics, the simple facts of age, name, birthdate and, of course, date of death. That was fair enough, since they'd died when she was so young, but even so she remembered how they had made her feel; Matthew and Sarah Freeman had made her feel safe. Loved. Warm.

As good as her foster families had been, as caring and kind, she'd never felt anything approaching the love and companionship she'd felt when she was her mother's arms, on her father's shoulders.

The closest thing she had to a family now was Leisel, the Rosettis, the Francises; as much as she adored Leisel and the Rosettis, as much as she admired and respected Mr. and Mrs. Francis, as much as she'd appreciated her foster families, when it came down to it, she felt alone. She'd always been alone. On the periphery. That's just who Sophie Freeman was. It wasn't so much that she enjoyed this perception overly; she'd become resigned to it as a fact of her existence.

Lost in her own thoughts, she didn't notice that they'd reached her apartment building until Leisel nudged her. "You're home, Soph," she said, her voice kind. Leisel was always kind.

Sophie smiled. "Thanks, Leisel. Look, I'm sorry about all this."

"Don't be sorry, Soph, you can't help that you're sick."

When she'd first met Leisel, in her first ever class at uni, the confident young woman had slightly overwhelmed her. She was the eldest daughter of a big family, her dad a Polish immigrant and her mum a second generation German immigrant, and she had a depth to her, a background, that Sophie couldn't hope to compete with. They lived up the coast, and leaving her family, Leisel had told Sophie, was one of the best things she'd ever done for herself. She loved them, of course, but she'd felt that she needed to spread her wings, stand on her own two feet.

Sophie had teased her about the cliche, but Leisel had shrugged. The fact was that Leisel knew her family, and they'd helped her define her place in the world, a feat Sophie had never quiet managed.

For Leisel, her family had been an anchor, keeping her grounded and strong. Sophie had never had that, despite the best efforts of the generous, fantastic men and women who'd welcomed her into their homes over the years.

Sophie reached over the centre console, and gave her friend a quick hug. "Thanks for getting me home."

"No problem," Leisel assured her. "Look, I'll give you a call later this afternoon, okay? Make sure everything's all right?"

Sophie nodded. "I've got work at two."

Leisel smiled. "We'll see."

Sophie shook her head. She picked up her bag, put it over her shoulder, and stepped out of the car, heading up towards her apartment.

Even though she'd left the window open that morning, the apartment was stifling. Sophie threw her bag on the couch, and went to get herself a glass of water. The old pipes groaned with consternation, but finally a stream of too-warm water came from the faucet. Letting it run for a while, she suddenly remembered how Mr. Francis had seemed unaware of his wife that morning.

She turned off the tap, wondering if what she was planning was actually a good idea. Maybe it would be better to just leave well enough alone. No, she decided, something was wrong, and they might need her help.

She went out into the corridor, and crossed to the door leading into the Francises' apartment. Knocking once, she pressed her ear against the wood. She could hear nothing from inside, which was odd, because Mrs. Francis usually had some kind of music playing. Jazz, girl groups from the sixties, Frank Sinatra…

Her heart sank. Could Mrs. Francis have passed away? Was that why Mr. Francis had not answered her that morning? Sophie knocked on the door again, only to once again hear no sign of movement on the other side.

She reached down to the doorknob, twisted it, only to find the door unlocked. Opening it, she stepped inside.

"Mr. Francis?" she called. "Mrs. Francis?"

Struggling to remember the name of the day nurse, she looked around the doorjamb, to find an apartment identical to hers… without a single item of furniture in there at all. No pictures on the walls, no chairs, no nothing. It was as if no one had lived there at all.

Could they have moved out? She would have noticed, surely, movers? Unless they'd come in yesterday afternoon while she'd been at work. Mr. Francis had been leaving, on his way somewhere… maybe to wherever it was he would be staying now? Perhaps he'd come back this morning just to return his key to the landlord, who lived on the first floor himself. But she'd asked him yesterday how his wife was, and he'd told her she was fine.

She must have died, Sophie realised. "Oh, that poor man," she said to himself, and left the empty apartment, shutting the door behind her.

She returned to her apartment, got herself a drink of water, and went to her bedroom. Sitting on the dishevelled sheets, she sipped from her glass and she began to cry.


	5. The Forgotten: 4

**'The Forgotten'**

_4. Professor Lancer_

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><p><em>The car. That day, so long ago. Fifteen years ago.<em>

_She heard the engine, the wheels, the crackle of static on the radio. She felt the crash was coming, felt her parents were about to die. She sat there, in the back seat, her life speeding on down towards its inevitable outcomes; her being made an orphan, her isolation, her death._

_She felt herself die, this time, as the car crashed. As the metal was torn apart, as the windows shattered, as her parents' lives her snuffed out before her, she felt herself die._

_She was in the back seat, bleeding._

_A fire, somewhere, was getting closer and closer to split open petrol tank. It would ignite, she knew, and take her with it as it turned the crashed car into an inferno from which there would be no escape._

_Twenty-year-old Sophie Freeman felt her five-year-old self die._

_"Sophie?"_

_She didn't recognise the voice, but it was warm, kind; a whisper against the gale, as if someone was speaking to her from very far away. The hint of a British accent, but she couldn't pick from where. The flames were getting closer, they were growing all around her. She was going to die._

_"Sophie," the voice repeated, more insistent this time. "Can you hear me?"_

_She couldn't see anyone else, couldn't really hear that voice… it was though she was feeling it, remembering it. The fire was growing. Her parents were dead, and she was about to join them._

_She was going to die, fifteen years ago, and she knew it with an absolute, gut-wrenching certainty. She was already dead. She'd died when she was fifteen._

_"This is just a dream," the voice assured her. "Can you hear me?"_

_"Yes," she answered, though she knew she wasn't speaking. "I can hear you."_

_"Good," the voice told her. "You'll be okay. This is just a dream, all right? You know it's a dream. You've had it before."_

_"Yeah," she agreed. She was dying, she was dying, and she knew it, despite what this voice was telling her. She was going to die in just a few more minutes, a few seconds, the flames were so hot and so close._

_"The fire isn't real, Sophie," the voice told her. "None of this is real. Just focus on the sound of my voice."_

_"I can't die here," she insisted, she pleaded._

_"You're not going to," the voice promised. "You know you're not. Focus on the sound of my voice."_

_"Oh God," she cried, "the fire!"_

_She felt someone grab her shoulder, felt an arm wrap around her midsection. In all her dreams before now, she'd never remembered who exactly had saved her from the wreck of her parents' car; she'd always assumed a policeman, or a fireman, or an ambulance officer or something like that._

_She felt someone tug at her little body._

_"Hold on, Sophie," the voice told her, almost grandfatherly; it was a young man's voice, to be certain, but there was something indescribably ancient about it._

_She was free of the car, free of the heat and the flame, and through her tears and terror, she looked up and saw her own face looking down at her. She reached out to touch that face, the freckles, the wide green eyes, only for the world to fall away from her. A second later, there was nothing but white light pervading everything, nothing but the sound of her own heartbeat…_

_"It'll be difficult," the voice told her. "You'll have to fight, Sophie, and fight hard, but it'll be okay. You will be okay. Do you understand?"_

_"What are you talking about? What fight?"_

_"Do you understand me?" the voice was rushing her now, as though whoever was speaking to her was running out of time._

_"Yes," she said, more because she felt she had to than because she actually understood. She was about to speak again, when she heard the noise she'd heard the night before. It was a beautiful, terrible sound, as if the universe were being torn apart and then put back together, stitched up by some cosmic needle and thread._

_Suddenly, the sound died away, replaced with the buzzing of a mobile phone set to vibrate._

_And then she woke up._

* * *

><p>"Damn it, damn it, damn it!" Sophie exclaimed as she leapt up from her bed. Rooting through her bag, she found her phone, just in time to miss Leisel's call. Sending a text to her friend, telling her she felt all right, she realised that she'd slept a little too long. She'd cried herself to exhaustion, eventually slipping into sleep.<p>

Quickly ducking into the bathroom to clean her teeth and check her hair, she gathered up her stuff and hustled towards her apartment door. She avoided looking at the Francises' door, and hurried down the steps. As she reached the ground floor, a headache overwhelmed her again, pain building from her temples across her forehead, until she was forced to shut her eyes against it.

She heard her heart pounding in her ears for a moment, and then the pain died away. Making a mental note to stop by the health care centre at the uni to get the headaches checked out, she headed out of the lobby of her building, past the mailboxes set in the wall and down the front steps. It was only a short walk to the bus stop, and she got there not long before the bus that would take her into work arrived.

Getting on board, she saw that it was even less crowded than the bus had been this morning, which wasn't too unusual for this time of the afternoon. What was unusual, though, was that the exact same bus driver was sitting behind the wheel.

"Hello again," she said, somewhat surprised. There were enough buses, and enough routes, in Newcastle that it was unlikely to see the same driver once a week, let alone twice on the same day.

The man looked straight through her, though, as if she wasn't even there.

"Do you remember me from this morning?" she asked as he handed her her ticket.

"Can't say I do, love," he said simply.

She smiled at him, not too surprised. He must have dealt with a lot of passengers over the course of the day. She retreated up to the back of the bus, and took a seat, but it seemed like just seconds passed after she sat down before the bus arrived at her stop.

It didn't take her long to get down to Bakers Hill Books, which seemed decidedly more organised than it had been yesterday.

Now, instead of barrel-chested Mr. Rosetti, his wife, the slight, white-haired Mrs. Rosetti, born and raised in Puglia, was standing behind the counter. She grinned her pearly false-toothed grin as she saw Sophie come enter.

"Sorry I'm late, Mrs. Rosetti," Sophie said.

The store was much cooler than it had been yesterday; in fact, Sophie realised, everything had seemed cooler today than yesterday. Her apartment may have been warm, but it wasn't the inferno she'd stepped into yesterday night when she'd gotten home. Even the buses hadn't been as hot. It felt more like spring than summer.

"Don't worry about it, _bella_," the old lady said with a smile, her accent thick despite decades spent in Australia. "How are you today?"

"Fine," Sophie said, joining her at the counter. She put her bag beneath it, and enjoyed the sensation of the cool air from the electric fan washing over her.

"Don't lie to me, Sophie," Mrs. Rosetti told her, not unkindly. "I can see that you're looking pale. Are you feeling well?"

"I've just been getting headaches," Sophie said, waving away her concern. "Things seem a little weird lately. One of my neighbours died."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Mr. Rosetti said, tutting. "That's sad. What happened?"

"Just old age," Sophie assured her. "She was pretty poorly, I think, towards the end. I saw her husband yesterday and he seemed fine, but I think he was probably just putting on a brave face."

"Are you all right?"

"Oh, yeah," Sophie said, "it just caught me by surprise. I was a bit sick this morning, but I think I slept it off this afternoon."

Mrs. Rosetti studied her. "You work yourself too hard, Sophie. I'm happy to give you all the shifts you need here, but between the store and university, I think you're stretching yourself too far."

Sophie sighed. "It's fine, Mrs. Rosetti, it really is. I love working here, I do."

Mrs. Rosetti laughed. "Don't think I don't know how boring it can be. Now, listen, we have an old customer coming in this afternoon. She's got two or three boxes he wants to offload. Spy books and crime novels, mostly, that sort of thing. She should be in around four thirty, five."

Sophie nodded. "Have you sorted out a price?"

"A hundred and fifty for the lot," Mrs. Rosetti assured her. "Fifty for each box. All I want you to do is go through and price them, put them in the right section. I don't really mind if it's not all in perfect order, but keep it organised, if you don't mind."

Sophie glanced around the shop. "Yeah, everything looks a bit tidier today."

"How do you mean, dear?" Mrs. Rosetti asked.

"I'm just saying, the store seems a lot more organised today. I tried to clear up the poetry section yesterday afternoon, but I'm not sure how well I did… did you do all this tidying this morning?"

Mrs. Rosetti looked around the shop. The overflowing shelves and boxes of old and new books were certainly tidier than they had been yesterday, and they looked better than they had in months. Mrs. Rosetti shook her head, as though clearing it. Sophie was reminded of how Leisel had acted earlier that morning, when they'd discussed what she'd been doing the night before.

"I… suppose I must have done," Mrs. Rosetti said. "Anyway, I'll be off. Now, listen, I think you need a bit of a break."

"Look, Mrs. Rosetti," Sophie began to protest, but the old lady just waved her hand.

"No, dear, I wasn't going to force you take any time off. God forbid you should ever have a few days to yourself," Mrs. Rosetti said, her tone light and teasing, "but you should come over for dinner tonight. I'll send a taxi to pick you up after closing time, hmm? Mr. Rosetti and I would love to have you."

Sophie grinned. "Thanks, Mrs. Rosetti, but I don't want to impose on you…"

"Impose?" Mrs. Rosetti exclaimed. "Don't be ridiculous! Roberto loves you, I love you. The taxi will be here at six thirty sharp, and I expect you to be on my doorstep by six forty five at the very latest."

Sophie couldn't help but smile. "All right, Mrs. Rosetti. Thanks for the offer. I'll see you then, I suppose."

"Yes you will," Mrs. Rosetti insisted. She picked up her handbag and headed for the door, leaving Sophie to her shift.

There was a steady stream of customers, but the hours seemed to fly by. Before long, Mrs. Rosetti's customer was due in, and Sophie finished her daily attempts at further organising the store, taking her place behind the counter. There seemed to be far fewer books in the place than there had been yesterday, and no one even had gone upstairs all afternoon.

Sophie shrugged it off though. She was definitely coming down with something; a headache flared up intermittently, and she was shaky and a bit nauseous. Probably just the beginning of a bout with the flu, but definitely not something she was looking forward to.

At least a home cooked meal with the Rosettis was in her near future.

The bell above the front door jingled, and Sophie looked up. A short, stout woman entered, struggling under the weight of a box that was probably full of books. Sophie went to help her, only to realise it was Professor Lancer.

"Oh, hi," Sophie said, sounding a little dim.

"Hello," the woman said, before realising who it was she was talking to. "Oh, hello! You're in one of my classes, aren't you?"

"Critical Reading," Sophie answered robotically. She was still embarrassed by the way she'd dashed out of class earlier that morning.

"Ah, that's right," Professor Lancer said, her eyes shining. "I remember you. Friends with the loud blonde one."

Sophie couldn't help but laugh. "That sounds like Leisel to me."

"How are you finding the course thus far?"

Sophie looked away, embarrassed. "I didn't actually get to the lecture this morning. I wasn't very well."

Professor Lancer lifted an eyebrow. "Oh? There's been a bit of a wog going around the uni," she said. "Take care of yourself. I'm sure that there's a lot of pressure on you, with work and uni, friends and a love life…"

Sophie couldn't help but laugh at that. "Love life? I haven't had a boyfriend since my last year of high school."

Professor Lancer smiled. "That's not true, I'm sure."

"No, really, I wish I was making it up," Sophie insisted. "If I'm not working, I'm at uni. I barely get a chance to do anything besides, well, this."

Professor Lancer nodded. Finally, they managed to lift the box of books onto the counter. "Is that it?" Sophie asked.

Lancer nodded. "It sure is."

Sophie frowned. "That's weird."

"How so?"

"It's just that Mrs. Rosetti said that she had a customer who was going to come in with two or three boxes of books. A hundred and fifty bucks, three boxes of books, fifty bucks a box."

"Well," Lancer said, "I did call Fabrizia. We agreed on fifty dollars for the box, but I only ever offered her one box of books…"

Sophie frowned. "I could have sworn..."

She trailed off, realising that she was going to sound forgetful or absent-minded at least, crazy at worst. She went around behind the counter, and opened the register, pulling out a yellow fifty-dollar note. "One note all right?"

Professor Lancer nodded. Sophie handed her the money, which she quickly put away in her wallet. "You know, Sophie, I might come across as a bit of a hard-ass in the lecture theatre, but I know what it's like to try and balance undergraduate study and work. Do you have a support structure?"

Sophie bit her lower lip. "Um, no. Not really. Aside from the Rosettis and Leisel and a few other mates."

"Mum and dad not around?"

"Um," Sophie said, considering whether or not to tell the woman. "No. They're not."

Professor Lancer considered her. "If you need help with anything over the semester, just drop me an email, all right? I can give you a few days' leeway for assignments, a bit of academic consideration. We just need to go through the motions, and all that."

Sophie smiled, genuinely. "Thank you very much, Professor. I'll see you in class next week then."

Professor Lancer nodded. "Next week, Ms. Freeman."

The woman turned to leave, and as the bell on the door jingled behind her, Sophie went to examine the books that she'd just bought on behalf of the Rosettis. Before she reached the box, though, the headaches returned; white hot pain exploded behind her eyes, knocking the breath from her.

She was suddenly on her knees, the pain too much for her to handle. All she could hear was the blood rushing in her ears, and her own laboured breathing; she missed the jingling of the doorbell as someone else entered the store.

Then, just as before, the headache died away. She shook her head, and pulled herself back on to her feet. It was only then that she realised someone had helped her up. Two strong hands had pulled her onto her feet. She turned around, and saw a tall man, at least two metres in height, with broad shoulders and a mop of dark, wavy hair. He was, incongruously for the summer heat, wearing a knee-length black pea coat, and tight black jeans.

"Are you all right?" he asked, and she blinked.

She recognised that voice, but she couldn't quite tell from where. An accent, a clipped, somewhat imperious voice… he was a young-ish man, who couldn't have been more than thirty, but there was something in his eyes. Something that glimmered behind them, that just seemed so ancient. Impossibly, unimaginably old.

She realised she was staring. Shaking her head, she said "Yeah, yeah… I'm fine. Um, sorry about that, I must be a bit dehydrated."

Studying her for a moment, the man said "No. No, I don't think so."

Sophie glanced at the clock behind the counter. The time surprised her; somehow, a few hours had vanished off the clock, and the cab Mrs. Rosetti said she send must have only been a few minutes away by now. "Um, how long we you in here for?" she asked him.

"Just a few seconds," the man said. "I think. Time's been getting away from me today."

Sophie looked at him. Did he know something? "I'm sorry, what?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, really. It seems like one moment I'm just standing somewhere and all of a sudden… I'm somewhere else. Usually comes with a headache."

Sophie blinked. She looked the man up and down. "Who are you?"

He didn't answer, but kept staring at her quite intently, before lifting his eyebrow and asking "Who are you, Sophie Freeman?"

Sophie took an involuntary step back. "Who the hell are you?"

"In this context," the man said, seemingly oblivious to how creeped out she was, "I'm not sure. I suppose, generally, you might call me the friendly neighbourhood Doctor. But right now… I don't know."

Sophie was shaking her head. Whatever nonsense this guy was talking, she didn't want a bar of it. "You need to leave this store. Now, sir."

"Really? Why?"

"Because we're just about to close, and you're making me very uncomfortable," she declared, and started to guide him towards the front door.

"Am I? Sorry," he said, and stopped in the doorway. He turned to her. "Look, perhaps we got off on the wrong foot here. I'm the Doctor. You're Sophie Freeman. Hello, nice to meet you."

"How do you know my name?"

"Because, right now, you're the most important woman in the world," the man, the Doctor, said, his eyes aflame.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sophie demanded.

"I'm not sure yet," he admitted. "I'm still trying to figure out what exactly is happening."

She shook her head. "Fine, whatever, just stay the hell away from me."

"That's going to be pretty difficult," he responded. "Wherever I go, there you are. The world's shrinking, Sophie, and you're at the centre of it."

Sophie felt like she'd been punched in the stomach. "What… what do you mean? The world is _shrinking_?"

The man just shook his head. "Haven't you noticed it? Time just flying past… people that are suddenly missing, almost as if they'd never been there at all. Look at this store. Where are all the books? Yesterday, there were hundreds upon hundreds, thousands. How long did it take you to get here? Where are all the people?"

Sophie blinked. "Get out."

"I can leave, Sophie, but you'll see me again."

"Get out!" she repeated, shoving him in the chest. He stumbled back a bit, but maintained his footing.

"Just trust me, Sophie," he asked. "Please."

Sophie was about to speak again, when she realised that he'd just asked the impossible. Trust? How could she possibly trust him? She didn't trust anyone. She had never trusted anyone, and she wasn't about to start now. Then it hit her; another headache, worse than any she'd experienced yet. Her knees buckled, and she fell, but she felt the Doctor grab her by her elbows and keep her on her feet.

She took a deep breath, and the headache disappeared. "Are you all right?" the Doctor asked, but she pushed him away.

"Get out," she demanded, her voice little more than a croak. She gave the Doctor another shove out the open door, and slammed it shut behind him. She locked it, quickly, and looked through the pane of glass onto the rapidly darkening street.

The Doctor looked at her for a second more, before walking off down the street. She turned around, and looked back into the store. She gasped when she saw how empty the shelves seemed… and then, a moment later, she wasn't sure they'd ever been filled to begin with.

She went back to the counter to get her bag, only to notice that the box of books Professor Lancer had dropped off was almost empty. She blinked. What felt like moments ago it had been full, packed to overflowing. She shook her head, remembering what the Doctor had told her; things had been vanishing all day, time had been getting away from her. Her breathing grew laboured, heavy, and her mind began to race. What did it mean?

A car's horn sounding on the street outside interrupted her thoughts, and they fell away. Shaking her head, she grabbed her bag and headed for the door. Unlocking it again, she stepped out, and noticed the cab waiting on the street. Locking the door behind her, she headed over to the car.

She didn't notice the Doctor, watching her from the shadows.

As the car drove away, he shook his head. "What's happening to you, Sophie Freeman?"


	6. The Forgotten: 5

**'The Forgotten'**

_5. The Rosettis_

* * *

><p>The cab ride was mercifully short, and when the driver pulled up out the front of the Rosettis' house, Sophie leant forward to pay him. He begged off, saying that Mrs. Rosetti had already paid him.<p>

As she grabbed her bag and prepared to get out, she caught a brief glimpse of the man's face in the rear view mirror. "Hang on," she said, "are you…?"

"Sorry, love?" the man said, and she thought she recognised his slightly doughy face and balding pate immediately. He was the bus driver from earlier in the day; but what were the odds of that? "What's wrong?"

Sophie shook her head. "Um, just déjà vu, I guess, unless… are you a bus driver as well, by any chance?"

The man frowned. "No."

"Oh," she said, and reached for the car door. She cast another look at him, but he was staring off into space, as if confused. She remembered seeing that look on Leisel's face, and Mr. Francis' earlier in the morning. She knew what they had all been thinking; the same thing she had been in the shop, earlier, when that man, the Doctor, had pushed her to look for the missing pieces. Something was very, very wrong.

Finally, the man shook his head, and he urged her out with a friendly, "Come on, love, out you get."

Taking her bag, Sophie stepped out of the cab, which almost immediately started up the street. Her mind still racing, trying to figure out what was going on around her, she turned towards the Rosettis' house, a squat, dark-brick bungalow sitting on a quiet, leafy suburban street. It had been built in the fifties, and it matched its neighbours almost to a tee. The only difference, really, was that while the neighbouring gardens featured well-trimmed rose bushes or a perfectly manicured lawn, the Rosettis were growing tomatoes and herbs. Despite her confusion and the creeping sense of dread that surrounded her, Sophie couldn't help but smile as the scents of their garden played around her in the darkening night.

She'd been here a few times before, mostly to events that the Rosettis threw for their enormous extended family; important birthdays, confirmations, baptisms, that sort of thing. They'd invited her along mostly as a courtesy, and she'd always had plenty of fun, but it'd always been tempered by the knowledge that, amongst all those toddlers and kids and teenagers and the teeming masses of an unrepentantly Catholic Italian family, she didn't quite belong. Her parents, she knew, had been irreligious and hadn't had much in the way of family at any rate.

As she headed up the garden path towards the front door, her rather sensitive nose picked up the scent of cooked tomato and spices, quite distinct from the smells of the gardsen. The night had cooled considerably, and she realised she hadn't eaten since breakfast that morning. Her stomach rumbled, and as she reached the bottom step, pain exploded through her skull yet again. A white-hot, searing pain, as though a poker had been shoved into her temple.

Her breath caught in her throat, and she tripped, barely catching herself before she fell to her knees. Once more, just as it had all day, the pain simply died away. She was still standing, at the foot of the steps leading up to the Rosettis' porch. The sound of the cab driving down the street had stopped. She turned, and looked over her shoulder. The cab was gone.

How long had she been down for? So far, it had seemed like a lot of time had vanished with each of her migraines, but for Leisel and for that man in the book shop, the Doctor, it had seemed like only a few seconds had passed.

She felt her eyes begin to burn, tears welling up. Sophie was panicking, and she knew it; her lungs seemed tighter, each breath a solid effort to take and to keep. She hauled herself up the steps, and pounded on the Rosettis' front door.

There was no answer at first, so she tried again, and then she heard movement in the hall. "I'm coming, I'm coming," she heard Mrs. Rosetti say. The door opened, and the kindly old woman greeted her with a warm smile. "A little impatient, Sophie?" she said, gently mocking.

"Sorry, Mrs. Rosetti, I just really need a trip to the bathroom."

Mrs. Rosetti stepped back from the doorway, letting her inside. "Of course, dear, of course. Just down the hall, on your left."

The interior of the Rosettis' house was one of the more overdecorated, homely and somehow still meticulously tidy dwellings Sophie had ever been in. Mrs. Rosetti, despite what the interior of Bakers Hill Books seemed to suggest, was a neat freak, whose mother's instinct for mess or dirt was unavoidable, and her house betrayed that.

Sophie found her way to bathroom. It was a small room with a sparkling white vanity top beneath his-and-hers mirrors, toiletries and beauty products arranged beneath them,, and Sophie went right for the sink. Splashing her face with water, she looked up into the mirror. The face looking back at her seemed to belong to a stranger. It was hair pale skin, her green eyes, the freckles across her nose, but that's where the resemblance to the face she knew stopped. Hollow cheeks, dark rings under her eyes, dishevelled hair… she was starving, and tired, even though she thought she'd probably slept more these last two days than she had in months.

What was happening to her? The headaches, the missing time… the missing people! None of it made sense. And that man at the store, saying he'd see her again. His presence had been disconcerting, but his voice had been comforting, kind. She had been able to pick up on his sincerity. He genuinely believed he'd be able to help her. His voice was, to wit, familiar, but she couldn't pick from where.

"What kind of name is the Doctor?" she said to herself.

Before any answers were forthcoming, however, there was a knock at the bathroom door. "Are you all right, Sophie?"

"I'm fine, Mrs. Rosetti," she called. Turning off the tap, she went to the door, opening it for the old lady. "I've just had a long day is all."

"Well, it's a good thing dinner's ready, dear," she said, taking Sophie's hand and leading her towards the dining room. Featuring a boarded up fireplace surmounted by a mantel overflowing with framed pictures, an impeccably set table and a bookshelf packed with paperback novels, the dining room was unmistakably, along with the kitchen, the heart of the house. "Nothing fancy, just gnocchi and my sauce, but how long has it been since you've had a home cooked meal that didn't come out of a packet?"

Sophie favoured the woman with a tired grin. "A long time."

"I thought so," Mrs. Rosetti said, before pointing to the dining room table. "Take a seat."

Sophie was only too happy to sit down. The mouth-watering scent of dinner was wafting in from the kitchen, and Mrs. Rosetti disappeared to dish it out. "A glass of wine, dear?" she asked from the kitchen.

"Uh, no, thanks," Sophie answered. She looked at the mantel, at the pictures there, filled with the smiling faces of the Rosetti family past and present. In some cases the pictures were in black and white, the occupants of their frames dressed formally, their smiles even more forced than was typical in staged photographs. She saw one of a young woman, her dark hair curly and hidden by a veil of white lace, in the arms of a tall, broad-chested man in a suit. She recognised the young woman a moment later. It was Mr. and Mrs. Rosetti's wedding day, in Italy, before they'd come out to Australia.

It dawned on her then; since she'd come into the house, she hadn't seen Mr. Rosetti. Standing, she went to the door into the kitchen. Leaning in, she saw that Mrs. Rosetti was alone. "Um, Mrs. Rosetti, where's Mr. Rosetti?"

"Hmm?" Mrs. Rosetti asked, standing over the stove.

Only two bowls had been placed on the kitchen counter.

"Where's Mr. Rosetti?" Sophie repeated, her heart pounding in her throat. "Where's your husband?"

Mrs. Rosetti froze, lowering the pot she'd been holding back onto the stove. She turned to Sophie, her expression one of confusion. There was more, there, in the way the skin around the eyes had tightened, in the way her mouth had become a thin-lipped line. Desperation, sorrow. "I'm sorry, Sophie?"

"Roberto," Sophie pushed, dropping the honorific. "Your husband? You've been married for years!"

"I…" the old woman began, her voice wavering. "I don't know what you're talking about, I'm not married."

"Mrs. Rosetti, you are! Rosetti isn't even your name, it's his!" Sophie insisted, starting to panic. How was this possible? How could Mrs. Rosetti just forget her husband? She rushed to the old lady, and took her hand. "Come with me," she insisted, and pulled her towards the dining room.

Sophie pointed to the pictures atop the mantle, but came up short.

In those photos, which in her experience had always shown Mr. and Mrs. Rosetti, their brood of kids and the ever-expanding circle of grandchildren, she could now see only Mrs. Rosetti, smiling from otherwise blank picture frames. Even the old black and white pictures of her parents and Mr. Rosetti's were blank.

"Where did they go?" Sophie asked, dropping Mrs. Rosetti's hand and stepping over to the mantle. She picked up the frames, one by one, but there was no one in the pictures. Just Mrs. Rosetti. The wedding picture now just depicted a smiling Fabrizia Rosetti, her hair tucked away beneath her veil, her beautiful, simple white dress flowing about her, the smile on her face transfixed on the paper for no apparent reason.

"Sophie!" the woman chided as Sophie threw the empty frames aside, unable to find a single other person in any of them. "What are you doing?"

Sophie whirled on her, barely able to breathe. "Where did they go?"

Mrs. Rosetti was shocked, for a moment unsure what to say. Sophie saw it, though, when she answered. A moment of discomfort, and "I think you need to sit down, Sophie."

"No!" she roared. "I can't! I've been sitting down, sleeping, taking it easy all day, and it's been happening around me! People are vanishing, one by one, and no one is noticing! No one can even see it!"

"What are you talking about?" Mrs. Rosetti pushed.

Sophie grabbed the largest of the photo frames. She'd seen it before; it had shown the entire extended Rosetti family. Mr. and Mrs. Rosetti, their kids, their grandkids, Mr. Rosetti's brother, his wife and his kids, even the newest member of the family, the first of the great grandchildren. It had been taken in the back yard of this very house. They'd all been grinning at the camera, laughing; it had been the great granddaughter's baptism, and after the pomp and ceremony of the church they'd come back here for a party that had lasted until well after dark.

Mrs. Rosetti had glowed with pride when she'd shown it to Sophie, and now it depicted an empty yard, with a smiling Mrs. Rosetti sitting there surrounded by empty chairs and a barren table, which in the original picture had been positively laden with food, entirely alone.

"Look at this picture," Sophie insisted, thrusting the frame into Mrs. Rosetti's hands. The old woman just stared at Sophie in bewilderment. "Look at it!"

Mrs. Rosetti stared at the picture. Seconds slipped by before she said "What about it?"

"Look at it!" Sophie repeated. "Can't you see it? It's wrong! You, all alone in that big picture. There should be other people in it. Lots of people! Your entire family!"

Mrs. Rosetti considered the picture. "This photo has sat on that mantlepiece for years, just like all my other photos. A lot of which you've now broken, by the way."

Sophie couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Oh, come on! Mrs. Rosetti, you have to see it. You have to see! In all of those pictures, it's just you. No one else!"

"Of course there's no one else," Mrs. Rosetti answered, dismissively. "Why would there be anyone else in my pictures?"

"Because…" Sophie realised she was going around in circles, but she needed to try one last time. "Because they're your family! Your husband, Roberto. You run the shop with him! Your daughter Diana, and your son Giovanni! Giovanni's kid… I can't remember his name, but he's tiny and blond with big blue eyes. Roberto always says he looks like a proper Venetian. Come on, Mrs. Rosetti, you know these people! You love them!"

Mrs. Rosetti looked at the picture again, cocking her head as though she was trying to sort something out. Sophie bit her lip, hoping she'd remember them, her family. All those people that had been forgotten, that had just vanished. Like Mrs. Francis, she realised; like Mr. Francis. Like the people on the bus, and in class. Perhaps even like the books in the store, silently slipping from the world, one by one.

Finally, with a sigh that shook her, Mrs. Rosetti set the picture frame back on the mantle piece. "I think you'd better leave, young lady," she said, looking at Sophie, her expression steely. "You come into my home, spinning these wild stories, talking nonsense, and then you break my things! This is what I get for employing you, for caring for you and your welfare?"

Sophie gaped. "But Mrs. Rosetti…"

"But nothing," Mrs. Rosetti said, planting her hands on Sophie's shoulders and shoving her firmly towards the front door. The woman grabbed Sophie's bag from where she'd put it beside the table and shoved it into her "Leave my house. Now!"

"Fabrizia!" Sophie shouted, but before Mrs. Rosetti answered, Sophie's entire world was swallowed up in white hot, blinding pain. Sophie screamed, and fell to her knees, and when the pain cleared she was outside Mrs. Rosetti's house, back at the foot of the stairs at the end of the garden path.

Hauling herself to her feet, she rushed towards the front door.

* * *

><p>Inside, Fabrizia Rosetti studied the pictures on her mantle. She knew her name, she knew that she lived in this house, and she knew that she made fantastic gnocchi. She knew, too, that she owned a book store, but she couldn't remember ever having read a book, or serving a customer. She couldn't remember where she'd been born, or anyone she'd ever met.<p>

All she remembered was that girl, Sophie Freeman, and even that memory was fading fast. She picked up the large picture frame the girl had shown her, the she'd quite violent insisted that she should look at.

She heard banging on the front door, heard her name being called out. She didn't care.

Staring at the picture, Fabrizia Rosetti began to remember. She remembered her husband, Roberto, their wedding in a little chapel in Venetia. She remembered emigrating to Australia, the long ride on the ship in first class. She remembered struggling to build a life in a new country, learning to speak English, moving to Newcastle to buy a home and then their bookstore. She remembered her first child, the little girl's christening. She remembered all of them. Her family, the light of her life.

She'd forgotten them, all of them. How? How could she have just forgotten them? How was that possible? And, just as importantly, where were they? She put the large picture frame aside, and reached for her wedding picture. She had treasured and adored this photograph, the only physical souvenir of a ceremony that had near bankrupted her parents, that had taken place clear on the other side of the world.

There she was, the most beautiful she'd ever looked in her life, but where was her husband? Where was the man she'd pledged to live her life with?

"Roberto," she whispered.

The banging at the door continued. The picture frame slipped from Fabrizia Rosetti's fingers and shattered on the floorboards.

* * *

><p>Sophie ceased pounding on the door when, suddenly, it opened. Her breath catching in her throat, she nudged it open and stepped inside. "Mrs. Rosetti?" she called.<p>

There was no answer.

"Mrs. Rosetti, are you there?" she called, and made her way down the corridor. As she reached the dining room, she realised that there wasn't a single piece of furniture, not one decoration or picture, anywhere in the house.

The dining room was empty. The house was dark. Mrs. Rosetti was gone.

"No!" Sophie cried, and it was all she could do to slump to the floor. Her knees were weak, shaking, and he only sign that there had ever been anyone in the house was a shattered picture frame. Sophie recognised it immediately. It was the ornate, antique picture frame that had houses the Rosettis' wedding picture.

She must have been looking at it, trying to see what was wrong. Too late, Sophie knew. Now Mrs. Rosetti was gone, just like everyone else.

Sophie took a moment to get her breathing under control, but she couldn't stop the tears pouring down her cheeks. She didn't even try. Straightening herself up, she reached into her bag. Aside from the copy of _Birthday Letters_, it was empty. Her phone, her laptop, her wallet; everything else was gone. Her plan had been to go through her phone's address book at random, punching in numbers until someone answered; she would have tried the emergency services, the police, even information assist. Anyone. Now she couldn't even try that, and there was no sign of anything except floorboards and dust in the Rosetti house, let alone a phone.

She bolted for the front door and burst out on the street.

"Hello!" she cried into the night. She heard the word echo amongst the trees that lined the street and the brick houses, all of which stood dark and empty. "Hello!"

There was no answer.

She began to run down the street, but she had no idea where she was going. She didn't know what was happening, but she felt like she had to do something. Anything.

"Hello!" she called out again, coming to a stop at a street corner. "Is anyone there? Anyone!"

"Sophie?"

The sound of the other voice came as a shock, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. As she turned around, though, she smiled. Leisel stepped towards her, but she didn't look like herself. Her hair was matted, and she looked like she'd been crying.

"Leisel!" Sophie called, running towards her, wrapping her up in a hug. "It's so good to see you!" Sophie realised, however, that Leisel wasn't returning the hug. Releasing her friend, Sophie stepped back and looked her up and down. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Leisel was shaking her head, her lips trembling. "I can't find anyone, Sophie. There's no one else in the city. They're all gone."


	7. The Forgotten: 6

**'The Forgotten'**

_6. Leisel_

* * *

><p>Shaking wildly, Leisel collapsed into sobs, but Sophie wrapped her into another hug. They were standing beneath a streetlight, but even so, Sophie could see that there was no moon, no stars above. Just an endlessly, oppressively sky. Though she'd always thought of the night sky, in her more poetic moments, as a canvas hung far above, now Sophie thought it resembled a blanket thrown across the world, suffocating and dangerous.<p>

It wasn't night, she realised. It was darkness. Just darkness. The realisation was enough to draw goosebumps across her arms. She suppressed a shudder, though, for the sake of Leisel, who was clutching her tightly.

Holding the girl tight against herself, Sophie whispered into her ear, "It's going to be fine, Leisel. I've got you now. You're safe."

Sucking in a breath, her teeth chattering, Leisel said "I don't know where the people have gone, Sophie. I don't know."

"Neither do I," Sophie said, "but now we're together, we can help each other figure it out."

Having Leisel cry against her was doing wonders for Sophie's own fortitude. With someone else to focus on and help, her panic was dying away, and she was getting a clearer picture of what was going on. Even if everything that happened, the vanishing people, the time skips, had seemed impossible, at least someone else had noticed now. She wasn't simply missing things or forgetting them.

People weren't simply bleeding away. Mrs. Rosetti had practically vanished before her, and the lack of people in the photographs had just been further proof.

"Leisel," Sophie said, determined to gather what information she could, "what happened to you this afternoon? After you dropped me off at my place, what happened?"

"I don't know!" Leisel wailed.

Sophie released her from the hug, and clamped her hands on her friend's shoulders. "Look at me, Leisel! Look at me!"

Leisel's bloodshot eyes met hers.

"What happened after you dropped me off at my apartment? Please think!"

Leisel bit her lip and shut her eyes. At length, she said "I don't know."

Sophie exhaled, and but kept calm. "Come on, Leisel. Think. What happened today? Start from yesterday, if you have to, but tell me. What happened?"

Taking a long, deep, steadying breath, Leisel considered. She was clearly thinking hard, which Sophie thought was odd; surely she'd at least be able to remember what had happened once she'd dropped Sophie off home? Finally, Leisel said "Yesterday afternoon, after class… I can't remember what happened then. Or what happened last night. I think…. I think the first thing I remember after that was getting a coffee this morning, and you meeting me at uni."

Sophie blinked. "Do you remember waking up?"

"No," Leisel said, shaking her head. "I just remember being at uni. With you. I don't even remember getting the coffee."

Nodding, Sophie had Leisel continue her story.

"Then we were in class. You got sick. I was with you. I don't remember what happened then, though. Like, I remember you running off, but that's it. Then I was in the bathroom with you, helping you, but that's it. I don't actually remember following you," Leisel said, frowning. "How come I can't remember?"

"I don't know," Sophie said, offering her a smile. She wiped away the last of her tears, and took Leisel's hand. "What next?"

"Then I drove you home," Leisel said, sniffling. "Then…" she trailed off, and stared away into the night.

"Come on, Leisel, think," Sophie urged.

"Well, then I was here," she said. "I just showed up here. With you. I heard you shouting, and then I was talking to you. A lot of time must have passed, but I don't remember anything… I just remember you getting out of my car, and then I was here. With you."

Sophie squeezed Leisel's hand.

"What's happened?" she asked. "What the hell has happened to me?"

Sophie shook her head. "I have no idea, Leisel. I thought I was going crazy. People have been going missing all day. Just vanishing. Remember this morning, in class? When I said that there were fewer people than there should be? I guess I was right."

Leisel nodded. "Now that I remember. But everything seemed fine?"

"I know!" Sophie answered, adrenalin pumping. "I just shrugged it all off. There weren't many people on the bus, we didn't have that many customers at the store… one of my neighbours didn't even know who his wife was, and then when I went to their apartment, it was empty, as if they'd just moved out."

Leisel blinked. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Don't you see?" Sophie said, and she couldn't help but grinning. She felt like she was getting closer to figuring it all out, and even though she had no idea yet how to solve the problem, it was enough that she was making progress on understanding exactly what was going on. "It wasn't that they'd moved out! It's that they never existed in the first place! There was nothing in that apartment at all. Just now, I was at my boss' house, Mrs. Rosetti, and there was no sign of her husband. She didn't even know him! She never knew she even had a husband, which makes no sense, because she wasn't born Mrs. Rosetti, and then she just disappeared, pretty much right in front of my eyes."

At a loss, Leisel just nodded.

"And that's not all," Sophie went on. "It's not just people. The bus ride… it usually takes me an hour to get to uni from home, and this morning it felt like a few minutes. When I was getting ready this morning, time was just flying past. Like at work this afternoon. And at work! All the books were just… yesterday, the place was packed, and today it was like every time I looked up, there were fewer and fewer on the shelves. Mrs. Rosetti told me that a customer was coming in with three boxes of books, and it turned out to be Professor Lancer, but she only had one."

"Wait, wait," Leisel interrupted. "Who's Professor Lancer?"

"Oh, come on, Leisel, you know her! Our Critical Reading lecturer at uni! She has a weird obsession with _Birthday Letters_," Sophie said, which reminded her of the one object still in her bag. Reaching in, she pulled out the dog-eared, annotated old copy of Ted Hughes' written memorial to his dead wife. "Look, you remember this book?"

She pressed it into Leisel's hands. "Um, yeah, I was reading it this morning."

"And I was reading it last night," Sophie said. "Actually, it was the last book I read."

"So?"

"So," Sophie said, "what if. What if it's the last book in the world? I know this is going to sound really weird, but the people who are disappearing… it seems to be focused around me. God, that sounded so self-centred."

"Yeah, it is," Leisel said, and through her tears she smiled at Sophie, playfully slapping at her friend's shoulder. "Why do you think that?"

"Two reasons," Sophie said. "First, the book. Of all the stuff that was in my bag that's disappeared, why would just this book be left? It's the last thing I read. I fell asleep last night reading it. And the second is… well, this is going to sound even weirder. There was this guy at work today, he wouldn't tell me his name. He just told me he was the Doctor, and that he'd been…"

When she trailed off, Leisel nudged her. "Go on!"

"He'd been following me, kind of. But not really. Like, the way he phrased it kind of implied that he didn't have a choice. He told me I was at the centre of the world."

Leisel frowned. "So if it's all about you, then why am I here? Where is everyone else? My mum and dad… I can't even remember their names!"

"No," Sophie said, "I know. We need to find him. He might be able to help us."

"That doesn't answer my question. If everyone else has gone missing, your neighbour, your boss, all those people from class, all your stuff… if I can't remember anything or anyone aside from you, why am I still here?"

Sophie blinked. She thought, and couldn't come up with a good answer? Why Leisel, of all the people she knew, of all the people in the entire city. Suddenly, she understood. "Because you matter."

Leisel was taken aback. "What?"

"You matter to me," Sophie said. "That's why you're still here. I love you, Leisel. You're my best friend. Mr. and Mrs. Francis mattered to me, and so did Professor Lancer and the Rosettis. Maybe not for who they are, but for what they represented… and you, Leisel, you mean so much to me."

Down the street, the streetlights began to flicker out one by one.

"What's that?" Leisel asked, her voice high with fear.

Sophie squeezed her hand. "I have no idea," she said, "but something tells me it's a good idea to stay out of the dark."

"Why?"

"Don't know," Sophie said, with a shrug. She smiled at Leisel, hoping the terror that was coursing through her didn't show. "Come on, the lights are still on in this direction. Run!"

Hand in hand, the two women bolted down the pavement. The streetlights were still going out, and were now winking off faster and faster in succession. Sophie, still clutching the book, let her bag fall on the pavement and left it there, Leisel hot on her heels.

They turned the corner, just as the last light went out, and Sophie let out a gasp. She recognised the building they were standing out the front of. Sandwiched between two lit streetlights, she saw the somewhat imposing brick and concrete edifice of her four-storey apartment building. The art deco design, the white-painted window frames, the glass double doors.

Beyond the glow of the lights, however, there was nothing. Not even the darkness of the night; just crushing, oppressive blackness, like Sophie had seen in the night sky when she and Leisel had first found each other. Even out there, though, Sophie could feel an absence. In the seat of her gut, she felt that, somehow, she and Leisel, this stretch of street and the building before them was all there was.

"I don't feel right looking at that," Leisel said, nodding into the blackness that even now was pressing in around them, "it's like there's something missing."

"Yeah," Sophie agreed. Looking into the blackness felt like standing on the roof of a skyscraper and looking straight down, the forces of gravity and fear pulling one towards the oblivion of the pavement. It was a deeply discomforting sensation. "I… come on, Leisel, let's get inside."

The two rushed in through the front door. The lobby was, of course, deserted; no neighbours poking through their mail slots. Sophie shouted as loud as she could, but there was no respone. "Come on," she told Leisel, "we'll try upstairs."

On the second floor no one answered, and on the third floor the pattern was repeated.

Finally, they reached the door to Sophie's apartment. She realised that she didn't have a key any more, but that hardly seemed to matter. The door just opened. Confused, she looked to Leisel.

Leisel shrugged. "I guess if we're the only people in the world, we don't need to worry about locks. You wouldn't need to keep anyone out."

"That makes… a surprising amount of sense," Sophie said, and stepped inside. Her apartment was just as she'd left it, if much sparser. All the papers, books and magazines had vanished. Sophie checked the fridge, and even though she hadn't exactly kept it well stocked, it was now completely empty. "Try the tap," she told Leisel, as she went to check her bedroom.

"It's fine!" she heard Leisel say as she turned on the tap. Sure enough, she could hear the flow of water.

Her bedroom was much the same as it had been that morning, though it was certainly much tidier. All her books, movies and CDs were gone. Her bed was still unmade, however. In the bathroom, the shower and the taps of the sink worked fine. Finally, she returned to the living room, where Leisel was sitting on the couch, staring at her hands. Sophie went over to her, and sat beside her.

"What's happening, Sophie?" Leisel asked her.

"I have no idea," Sophie said, and the old sense of being overwhelmed suddenly welled up inside her. She fought to maintain control, but it was getting difficult.

"No, I don't mean generally, I mean…" Leisel paused, as though casting around for the right words. "I mean, what's happening to me? I can remember you, and that's it. I know that there's more to remember. A family, a life, but I don't remember anything about it."

Sophie frowned. "What's the earliest memory you've got at the moment?"

Leisel shook her head. "I'm not sure. I want to say a day at the beach with my parents, or winning a competition at pre-school, but that's not true. I don't want to admit it, but if I'm perfectly honest, my first memory is… well, it's of you. Do you remember what happened when we first met?"

Sophie thought. "Orientation at uni," she said. "You were in the stall for the English department when I went in. You asked me if I liked… oh, God, what was it?"

"Jane Austen," Leisel finished for her.

Sophie smiled at the memory. "Yeah."

"I remember that," Leisel nodded. "I remember getting your number, adding you on Facebook. I remember hanging out, going to the movies, the beach, going out in town, being in class with you. And that's it. It's just you. You're all I remember."

Sophie shivered, and stood up. "Then it is about me, isn't it?"

Leisel, bewildered, shook her head. "It must be. What do you remember? Like, when did this start?"

"Well," Sophie said with a shrug, "I remember it starting this morning, but it might have started before then. I mean, this morning on the bus, I…" she trailed off. It hadn't started last night; the weird things hadn't just been happening to the world around, they'd happened to her. To her own person. "Actually, no. Last night. I was having a dream–"

"Do you remember what you were dreaming about?" Leisel interrupted.

Sophie was brought up short. "Yeah. I do. I was dreaming about my mum and dad. In the car."

"Oh, Sophie," Leisel said, her face falling. "I'm sorry."

Sophie shrugged off her concern. "I think we've got bigger things to worry about than my screwed up fantasy life. Although, maybe not."

"Huh?"

"Well, I have that same dream almost every night. I'm five years old, I'm in the car with my parents, and we crash. Just like it happened in real life. Sometimes there are variations, but it's all the same thing. Me, mum and dad all in the car, and then the crash," Sophie explained. "Except for last night. And today, actually. Last night, there was this new sound."

"What kind of sound?" Leisel asked, but Sophie was already headed for her bedroom. Leisel rushed to follow her. "Sophie!"

"I fell asleep on the couch," Sophie said over her shoulder, and stood at her bedroom window. "When I woke up, I came in here, and down there in the courtyard, I saw something. It was just a big blue box, but it didn't belong there."

"A blue box?"

"Yeah," Sophie said. "There was a light on top, and words as well, but I couldn't read them from this distance. It looked like it was made of wood. It must have just dropped out of the sky, right on top of the deck chairs. It crushed them to tinder."

Leisel peered over Sophie's shoulder. "But the deck chairs are down there…"

"Exactly!" Sophie's eyes lit up, and she turned around. "I was up here, and I saw the box. Smoke was rising from it. It was on top of the ruined deck chairs. I thought it was weird, so I ran out, and I went into the elevator."

"What?" Leisel interjected. "The elevator? I thought you hated that thing."

Sophie was surprised. "You're right. I have no idea why I used the elevator last night, but I did. Then, all of a sudden, I got a headache."

"Like this morning?"

"Exactly like this morning," Sophie nodded, "but I didn't throw up. Then the elevator arrived on the ground floor. I got out, went out to the courtyard and the box was just gone. I went back upstairs to bed. Then it all started happening."

"The people started vanishing?"

Sophie nodded. "Come on. Let's go downstairs. If it's that blue box in the court yard that's caused all this, maybe the answer is…"

She trailed off, as yet another headache began to burn through her mind. Her vision died away, and though she heard Leisel shout her name, she couldn't answer. She felt the floor tilt away below her feet and she struck it hard. This time, the headache didn't go away.

All she could see was blank, white nothing, and all she could feel was pain. Before she slipped into unconsciousness, she felt rather than saw Leisel vanish from her apartment.

Sophie fell to the floor, completely alone. Then the entire world went dark.


	8. The Forgotten: 7

**'The Forgotten'**

_7. Mum and Dad_

* * *

><p>When she came to, Sophie Freeman wasn't lying face down on her apartment floor. It didn't feel like waking up; it felt like she'd blinked, and now she was coming out on the other side of a brief moment of darkness. That wasn't what surprised her most of all however; what surprised her was that she was standing. She was standing up straight on a soft, spongy surface. Slowly, her senses seemed to sharpen, and the world around her grew as her perceptions widened slowly.<p>

She felt the ground beneath her feet, first, then the warmth of sunshine on her cheek. She felt a gentle breeze flow through her hair. It was warm day, very warm, but the breeze was comforting, refreshing. Then she heard bird song, the calling of magpies. Cars driving past, wheels on the road, the revving of engines. Then, at long last, she could see, and she realised that she'd had her eyes shut tight. The world resolved into glorious detail around her.

She was standing in what looked like a park. Thick, lush grass surrounded her. A line of trees stood against a distant road, separating the park from a storm water drain. There were a few cars parked there, and between her and them there was a bunch of kids playing rugby. A magpie flew through the brilliant blue sky, singing its song, and the distant clouds of an autumn afternoon hung above her.

She had no idea where she was, but she liked it. The smells in the air, freshly mown grass, the distinct tang of fertiliser. Something about it was comfortable, familiar.

"Hello?" she said, but her voice sounded distant. It echoed, which was odd; everything she knew about acoustics, which admittedly wasn't much, told her that there shouldn't have been an echo. "Can anyone hear me?" she shouted, louder, but the kids playing rugby didn't even look up from their game.

She turned, and saw a collection of squat brick buildings surrounded by a low green picket fence. She realised she was looking at a school. From the size of it, and the technicolour artwork in the windows, it was a primary school. Something about it, too, seemed familiar, if a little distant, brooding, almost threatening.

She started to walk towards the front of the school, and she saw a much larger crowd of people was standing there, queuing up. Leaning against the fence were posters, quite a few of them, all of them showing pictures of smiling men, most of whom looked like bank managers.

"Oh my God," she said to no one in particular, not that anyone could hear her in any case. She knew these men, and recognised two of them immediately.

John Howard and Paul Keating.

The school must have been a polling station, and the queued adults were lining up to vote. Election day, 1996. But how? How was that possible? That had happened fifteen years ago… almost fifteen years to the day, come to think of it. The election had happened in March, and it was February.

"Am I dreaming?" she asked.

No answer was forthcoming. She knew with absolute certainty that what she was seeing was the day of her parent's death.

Then, her eyes were drawn to the sign in the distance.

"Tamworth Public School," she read aloud. Her stomach dropped, and her blood ran cold. She was in Tamworth, election day 1996. The time and place of her parent's death.

She'd dreamt of the car crash nearly every night for years. It was the only dream she ever remembered having. Then it hit her. So often had she dreamt that she'd relived the car crash that she'd forgotten the details of the actual event. She'd seen it from her own viewpoint so many times…

The road out the front of the school. That's where the accident had happened.

She ran, as fast as she could, and the day seemed to fall away around her. Suddenly, she was standing at the side of the road, and she saw her parents' car. She saw her mum and dad in the front seat, herself in the back.

"No!" she shouted, as the other car came screeching around the corner.

She turned away, unable to watch, but she heard it all again. The familiar sounds of the crash, metal on metal, shattering glass. Screams and shouts of shock. She couldn't hear the blood spilling across the road, but she imagined that she could.

Sophie Freeman for the first time, for the millionth time, watched her parents die. And then the scene reset, and she watched it all over again.

* * *

><p>"Well," the Doctor said, looking around. "That's not right."<p>

One moment he'd been standing outside Bakers Hill Books, the night, and the darkness that wreathed it, rapidly gathering around him, and the next he'd been here. Standing in a park, in the midst of a beautiful day.

He knew it was all connected to that girl, Sophie Freeman, but he had no idea how. Why her? And of all the planets in the entire universe, why did it have to have been Earth? He scoffed at his own question at that point. _Of course_it was happening on Earth. It all always happened on Earth. So, fine, Earth, in the early part of the twenty-first century. A young woman…

"Where am I?" he said to himself, and he heard the discordance in his voice. Wherever he was, it wasn't a physical plane. Of course, that wasn't necessarily surprising, considering the general nature of his location or lack thereof.

He recognised he was in a park, but it seemed more than a park. The presence of rugby goal posts at either end of the meadow, which was hemmed in by trees on one side, and a collection of brick buildings on the other, marked it as a playing field. A strip of concrete in the middle of the field suggested the whole area doubled as a cricket pitch.

And the brick buildings… fenced in as they were, with shade awnings and brightly coloured play equipment, almost certainly comprised a school. He would have guessed a public primary school, judging by the somewhat ramshackle appearance of the place and the preponderance of bright primary colours.

If he listened, he could hear a group of boys playing a game with a ball; their accents were unmistakably Australian, most likely rural New South Wales, and if he had to guess from their vernacular, he would have placed their origin in the late-eighties-to-early-nineties.

"But then again," he chided himself aloud. "Rural New South Wales."

Some time before the millennium, then. The somewhat distant sounds of their voices, and the muted perceptions he felt otherwise, suggested a sort of physical disconnect from his surroundings. He wasn't actually standing on a playing field in Australia some time in the 1980s or 1990s. Instead, he was standing in someone's _idea_of a playing field in 1980s or 1990s Australia. It was, however, a remarkably detailed one, if a little romanticised; he caught hints of that person's perceptions of the area. The school, for instance, exuded a difficult, elusive sort of menace. The boys seemed heroes of a battle for control of a ball, not a couple of kids playing a game of kick around.

Somewhat confused, though certainly fascinated, he walked around the school, and came across a small crowd of adults. He caught a glimpse of a pair of tables either side of the school gate, and a small group of volunteers handing out pamphlets.

He noticed the election placards.

His Australian history wasn't great, but he did remember there being four elections over the course of the 1990s; 1990, 1993, 1996 and 1998. Judging from the faces on the placards however, he was standing in someone's understanding of election day, 1996. The day seemed almost childlike in its intense detail and vivid reality; none of the cynicism or detail selectivity of an adult. Everything that that child had seen had been replicated in the literal fashion of a child's understanding of the world.

So, he decided. A child's memory of election day, 1996, in a town in rural New South Wales. But why? Of all the places and times a person's memory was capable of conjuring up, why here? Why now?

That's when he heard the screech of tyres, the smashing of glass. He turned, and saw a car wreck. Petrol and blood was spilling across the road, a fire was being sparked.

And then, quite conspicuously, the scene reset.

Over the heads of the crowd, the Doctor, now wearing the tallest body he'd yet experienced, saw a familiar face.

Sophie Freeman.

The car was moving again, down the street, and it was going to crash, just as it had before. It was going to be smashed aside. The Doctor saw a man driving, a woman in the passenger seat, and a young girl with curly brown hair in the back.

The Doctor shook his head, and began to move towards Sophie. Though he was physically walking, it didn't feel like walking. He was moving, yes, but he knew instinctively that there wasn't a physical reality to walk through. The ground beneath his feet wasn't actually the ground, the breeze he felt wasn't actually there.

A few moments later, he reached Sophie.

He said her name, and she turned towards him. She was crying, her eyes red, tears flowing freely. "You," she said, her voice shaky. Behind her, the car crash happened all over again, and she winced. "I was looking for you."

"A lovely coincidence," the Doctor said with a smile. "I was looking for you, too."

"Why?" she asked, and the Doctor was caught off guard.

"I'm not exactly sure," the Doctor said, before turning back to the constantly recurring tableau on the road nearby. The constant crash. One moment in time happening over and over again. "Where are we?"

"Can't you read?" Sophie said, and lifted a trembling finger towards the school's sign.

The Doctor read it, and thought about the date he'd deducted. "Tamworth. 1996. Can't say I'm too familiar with that place at that time."

"I am," Sophie said, simply. "You said you were a doctor. Can you… can you make this better?"

The Doctor turned back to her, and offered her his kindest smile. Kindness was strange to him, after so many years alone, but he found it fit him well. He couldn't help but take note of the literal way in which she'd interpreted the name he'd given her. A doctor who made things better. "I can try. I will definitely, definitely try. I just don't understand why we're here. Tell me, Sophie, where are we?"

"I just told you," she insisted.

"No, no. Maybe I phrased the question poorly. What is this place? _Why_are we here. Of all the places in the world to be, why here, on this day, at this time?" the Doctor asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.

"Because of that," Sophie said, indicating the car crash.

"Who's in the car?" the Doctor asked, but he thought he knew the answer to that question, as well.

"Me," she said, simply. "And my parents."

"You survived," the Doctor surmised.

"Yes," Sophie nodded, "but they didn't." It was then that he saw recognition dawn on her, and she turned to him. "I've heard your voice before! I've heard it here! You were talking to me, this afternoon once I got home from uni, in my dream!"

The Doctor cocked an eyebrow. "Was I?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed. "You told me that I'd have to fight."

The Doctor smiled. "Well, yes, that I did. I don't recall that conversation taking place here, though. I seem to remember it happening in an elevator."

"An elevator?" Sophie said, confused.

"That's where I was, before I joined you at the book shop, Sophie," the Doctor explained. "Though, to be fair, that was in literally another universe. And it wasn't so much of a conversation as a telepathic exchange of ideas."

Sophie's mind boggled. "What are you talking about, another universe? Telepathy?"

"It's a long story," the Doctor said, "but think of the world you've been living in for the past day like a balloon that's just been blown up. All day, air has been let out of the balloon, and it's been getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Not my best analogy, but I think it'll work for our purposes."

"The people disappearing," Sophie said, "are you saying that they were like air in a balloon, leaking out slowly?"

The Doctor smiled. "Yes! Perhaps it's not as random as that, though."

"How do you mean?" she asked, as the screech of tires and the smash of one car against the other happened all over again behind her. She shivered, tears still rolling down her cheeks, but she focused on the Doctor; she was nothing if not a fighter, he realised.

"Think about it, Sophie. Think about who went missing. How it happened. It started from the outside in."

Sophie shut her eyes, and she was rocking backwards and forwards. "I don't understand."

"You do," the Doctor said, "I know you do. It's as if something is chipping away at your world, bit by bit, destroying the things that matter to you. It started on the edges of your awareness, the outermost parts of your reality."

"What happened to them?" Sophie asked. "What happened to everyone else?"

"They're gone," the Doctor informed her, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.

Her eyes snapped open. "Can they come back?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I'm afraid not. You see, they never existed. The physical universe they inhabited never existed."

Sophie was shocked. "What do you mean, 'never existed'? They were real! The Francises, the Rosettis, Leisel! I held them. I knew them!"

The Doctor nodded. "And you still do. They weren't here to begin with, Sophie. For the last day you've been living in a parallel universe. It was created around you, and it has been collapsing around you ever since it was created. The entire physical universe was duplicated, based around your perceptions, and ever since then something has been devouring it."

Sophie stared. "What?"

"Think about it, Sophie. Talk me through it."

"Why can't you just tell me!" Sophie roared. "Why can't you just explain it? You seem to know everything! Why can't you just tell me what to do?"

"It doesn't work like that!" the Doctor said. "If you're going to get out of here, Sophie, it needs to be you. It all needs to be you. You need to take initiative, prepare yourself. You need to focus on what's important, on what you can remember. All of those people, the forgotten, they're gone, but you're not. You need to fight."

She took a deep breath. "How do I do that?"

"Tell me where we are."

Sophie blinked. "How do you not understand?"

"No, Sophie, you need to say it! Where are we?"

"We're in Tamworth, on election day, 1996. The day my parents died," she explained. "I'm in the back seat of their car. A man came around the corner too quickly, went right through a stop sign, and hit the car. It flipped. Mum and dad died instantly."

"This place is important to you," the Doctor surmised.

"Of course it is!"

"All right," the Doctor granted, "but why? Why does it matter so much?"

"My parents died!" Sophie shouted.

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, they did. It happened fifteen years ago, though. If I'm right, and the entire physical dimension of the universe created around you has been erased, leaving only your own mentality… we're standing in your memory right now, Sophie. We're not actually in Tamworth in 1996. I want you to think about why. Why are we here."

"My parents died," she repeated, her voice little more than a whisper.

"Why this memory?" the Doctor asked.

"I dream about this," Sophie said. "All the time. Every time I close my eyes, I know I'll just come back here. I'll be in the back seat of the car, watching my parents, listening to the radio, and I know, every time, I know that they're going to die."

"You live here," the Doctor said, and she nodded. Her shoulders shook.

"I do," she nodded. "I know I shouldn't, I know I should move on, but I can't. I have… I've never gotten past this moment. I lost everything on this day, and I never got it back."

"It paralyses you," the Doctor said, and Sophie nodded. He reached out to her, and she took his hand. He squeezed her fingers in his.

"I don't know how to be anywhere else," Sophie said. "I don't know how to do anything, how to be anything other than… this. That girl, in the back seat of that car on that day."

The ground suddenly shook, but no one else around them seemed affected.

"What was that?" she wailed.

"It's you," the Doctor told her. "You're moving on. You're allowing this part of your life to be forgotten."

She looked at him, fresh tears in the corner of her eyes. "What?"

"You make yourself relive this moment, over and over again," the Doctor explained. "Even with your own personal universe collapsing, it's the last place you go, your redoubt, your ultimate sanctuary. The pain and terror and isolation of this moment is what sustains you."

"But why? That can't be right, can it?" she asked, and her knees shook. He pulled her into a hug. "I mean, it's not meant to be pain that keeps me strong. It's meant to be happy memories, good things."

"Maybe, but not here. Not for you. Because you're human, Sophie, and you're fallible, and sometimes the only thing you can do to keep yourself sane is to cling on to the anchoring power of pain," the Doctor explained. "You need to let go. Ordinarily, I'd urge you to hang on to what's important, to use that to pull yourself out, but not now. I think whatever has put you here, whatever created this parallel universe around you, is using this place, this memory, to trap you here so it can finish its work."

"So what do I do?"

The Doctor pointed to the car crash, happening all over again. "You need to let go of this moment, Sophie. You need to forget this moment."

"But my mum and dad…" she whispered.

"They died long ago, Sophie," he told her, quietly. "You have been okay without them for fifteen years. You'll be okay without them now. Let go of them. Let go of this."

"I can't," she said, shutting her eyes and pressing herself against the Doctor as tightly as she could. "They wouldn't want me to. Of all the people I've forgotten, I can't forget my mum and dad. I just can't do it."

"You have to," the Doctor said, "or whatever it is that has trapped you here will finish its job. It'll devour the parallel world with you inside, and you'll be lost forever. Let go, Sophie. Please. Trust me, they'd want you to."

She opened her eyes, and turned her head, still pressed against the Doctor's chest, towards the car crash. "I love them."

"And they loved you," the Doctor told her. "They'd want you to live."

Sophie shut her eyes again. And she let go.


	9. The Forgotten: 8

**'The Forgotten'**

_8. Sophie and the Doctor_

* * *

><p>Sophie opened her eyes, and found herself still clinging to the tall man in his dark coat. That was all she knew, though, about her surroundings. There seemed to be nothing beyond the two of them, though not in the sickly absent way of the blackness that had surrounded her and Leisel before. "Where am I?"<p>

"I don't know," the Doctor said, and he sounded genuinely fascinated by the whole thing. "You haven't decided yet."

"What?" she said, confused.

"It's your universe, Sophie Freeman," he said. "I'm just living in it."

She let go of him, and turned around. It hit her at once, a billion different thoughts, feelings, sensations and understandings, and out of nothing resolved a definite something, though it took her brain a second to figure out what she was seeing. She found herself standing in Bakers Hill Books, but the shelves were bare. The cash register was gone, the electric fan was gone… there was just the counter and countless empty shelves. Outside the windows at the front of the store was impenetrable darkness.

"Work?" she said, more to herself than the Doctor. A faint hint of disappointment hit her through her cluttered jumble of emotions.

"Looks like it," he answered anyway.

"Why?"

"I don't know," the Doctor said. "You might just have a very boring fantasy life. Or this could be where you feel safest. Some kind of stability. You work with the same people every day here, it provides you with a steady income."

Sophie considered. "Yeah, I suppose so."

The Doctor nodded. "Now that we're here, we need to focus on something. Anything, really. This universe is getting smaller and smaller, too small to sustain itself, and the amount of concentration needed to hold it together is distracting our enemy from us."

"No," she said, simply, and rounded on the Doctor. "First of all, you're going to answer a few questions of mine."

The Doctor shook his head. "We don't have time, Sophie. I would, really, I promise."

"We _do_ have time," Sophie declared. "This is my universe, right? You're just living in it. I make the rules. Answer my damn questions!"

The Doctor was taken aback. "All right, then."

"What happened to me?" Sophie demanded. "Who are you? Why are you here?"

"Well, I'm the Doctor," he said. "I'm… a traveller. Just a guy who goes around and fixes things."

"Wearing a thick dark coat in the middle of summer," Sophie said, deadpan.

"You're certainly feeling better, aren't you," the Doctor replied, with not a small amount of sarcasm. "I mean, if your sense of humour is intact."

"Yeah, well, letting go of the emotional deadweight that's been paralysing you your entire life will do that to a person," Sophie said, wiping away the last of her tears. "So, you're 'the Doctor'. A traveller. Leaving aside the fact that that is not a name and 'travelling' is not a job, I'll accept that for the moment. The coat?"

"In my defence, it's not summer everywhere," the Doctor said, and Sophie couldn't help but smile. "I was a few galaxies over, in the far future, helping out a ship called the _Prospero_…"

"Wait, a few _galaxies_ over?"

"I just told you that an entire parallel universe was created around you," the Doctor said to her, "and you're going to quibble over a few galaxies?"

Sophie, despite herself, laughed. "Okay, fine, I suppose in the midst of all this weirdness, that's not too weird. But a ship… you mean, like, a space ship? Named after a Shakespearean character?"

"There are moons in this very solar system named after Shakespearean characters," the Doctor countered. "Plus an entire alien species. That's besides the point, anyway. The point is, I was helping out this ship called the _Prospero_, and then I detected an unusual energy signature in the Time Vortex."

"Yeah, all right, that's too much," Sophie said suddenly. "I'm sorry, but what are you talking about? The Time Vortex? Seriously?"

"Yeah, well, when I said 'traveller', I really should have put a word in front of that," the Doctor explained. "Um, I'm a time traveller."

"A time traveller," Sophie repeated.

"Yes. Anyway, I tracked the disturbance in the TARDIS, and I arrived in orbit Earth in 2011," the Doctor said. "I ran a scan, detected the source of the energy signals coming from the east coast of Australia. A city called Newcastle. An apartment building. Your apartment building."

"TARDIS?"

"It's… my ship."

"What does it look like?"

The Doctor traced a rectangle in the air before him with his finger. "A sort of box thing."

"Is it blue?" Sophie said, comprehension dawning on her.

The Doctor smiled. "So it is!"

"I saw that box in the courtyard of my building last night," Sophie said. "You broke the deck chairs!"

"Well, it wasn't exactly a controlled landing," the Doctor admitted. "That energy signature spiked all of a sudden, you see, and the TARDIS was caught off guard. I managed to land pretty well, considering all the damage that had been done to her systems."

"Her?"

"You're asking a lot of questions," the Doctor said.

"Considering everything that has happened to me," Sophie said, "and considering how little I know about everything's that happened to me, and considering that you seem to have all the answers, and considering that getting myself out of this is apparently my responsibility, I don't think it's too presumptuous of me to ask you what the hell you know."

The Doctor smiled, wide and genuine. "Oh, Sophie Freeman. I like you."

"Thank you," she said, nodding. She was all business now; the emotional terrors of the day, her exhaustion and fear had been buried for the moment. She could deal with all of that later. Right now, apparently, she had to save herself, and that was her number one priority. Her parents, Leisel, the Rosettis, everyone else cold be mourned for, worried about, later. "I like you, too. Now answer the question."

"You've never heard someone refer to a ship as a 'she' before?"

"Of course I have."

"Well, good, because I was sort of doing that," the Doctor said, though she definitely got the impression that she wasn't telling him the entire truth. "Your next question is going to be something about 'how can you travel in a blue box', and I promise you I'll answer that one later. It's a really long story."

"Fine," Sophie said, waving his explanation off. "The question after that one, then. You landed. Then what?"

"Then I went out to have a look around. I found you passed out in an elevator, but there was something wrong."

"What?" Sophie asked, confused.

"I could sense it, all around you. Time distortions. It wasn't your building that was the source of the strange energy signatures. It was you."

"I'd be surprised," Sophie said, "but that was kind of predictable."

The Doctor laughed.

Sophie pushed on. "What was happening to me?"

"Something had latched on to the time distortions, and was feeding on them," the Doctor explained. "I'm not sure what it is that's doing it yet, but I can make a few educated guesses. The point is, it was getting a great meal out of you, but it wasn't enough. So it did what it could to stretch out the feeding process."

"By creating a universe around me?"

"Exactly!" the Doctor said. "You catch on fast."

"When the world is, apparently literally, collapsing around you, you sort of have to," Sophie explained. "Go on."

"Well, the energy you were providing was more than enough to set up a branching parallel universe entirely around you. It just stole your thoughts and recreated them physically. The world as you knew it was duplicated entirely," the Doctor said, "but even that limited universal recreation began to collapse in on itself almost immediately, which is fine for the beastie that did this, because that just means more food. Stuff started vanishing, people, the world, anything, as the universe, well the Universe According to Sophie Freeman, began to disappear out from under you."

"Until all that was left…"

"Was you," the Doctor said, finishing her thought. "And your dreams. Then you let go of that. Now, it's just you and your immediate perceptions. We're not actually in the bookstore. The bookstore doesn't exist in this universe anymore."

Sophie nodded. "Okay, fine… but then why are you here?"

"I'm not a part of the universe," the Doctor said. "I'm… well, not exactly outside of it, but not in it, either. I'm a mental projection, superimposed over your version of reality. You're quite strong, mentally; I was only able to reach you in moments of extreme weakness on your part, which were few and far between, especially given what's been happening to you."

"My dream this afternoon," Sophie said, listing the ways she'd come into contact with the Doctor over the course of the day. "Just after Professor Lancer left the store, when I thought I was going crazy. Then just after Leisel vanished, and I was left alone."

"Exactly," the Doctor said, "but by then it was too late to reach you in the physical universe that had been created around you. That's why I joined you in your dream of 1996."

Sophie nodded. "All right, fine. That's fine. But what do I do now? How do I get out of here?"

The Doctor looked around. He could see nothing amongst the bare wooden shelves of the store. "I'm not certain. For some people, it would be friends or family; someone to remember, to reach out and grab, to hold onto. An anchor, to pull them back down to Earth, to stop them from being lifted away. But for you? People didn't seem to be what was keeping you grounded. I honestly couldn't tell you."

Sophie sighed. "So, I've been lonely all my life and that's what's going to kill me."

The Doctor touched her shoulder. "If it helps, I know what it's like to be lonely."

She smiled. "It probably should help, and under different circumstances it might, but right now? Right now, I just want answers. I just want this to be over."

"There is another option," the Doctor said. "You could give up. Let it take you."

Sophie's eyes widened. "What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you even say that? You might not know much about me, Doctor, we might only have just met, but I will not just roll over and let some… time distortions or whatever destroy me. I stood by today when people vanished, I let myself be overcome by boredom and self doubt, but that's not happening now. Not anymore."

The Doctor grinned. "Brilliant!"

Apparently, he'd been prepared for that answer; he was not, however, prepared for the punch Sophie aimed at his cheek. She didn't strike him too hard, or very hard at all really, but it was enough to surprise him, and to tell him that she wasn't amused.

"What did I do?" he protested, but Sophie wasn't having a bar of it.

"I get that that was some kind of test or something," she said, infuriated, "but don't you ever pull that shit again."

The Doctor blinked. "You swore."

"I'm Australian," Sophie said, simply.

He smiled. "All right. Fine. Sorry I pushed you, there, but I had to be sure you were in it to win it."

"Again, Doctor," he said, "I'm Australian. So what do I do?"

The Doctor thought. "There has to be something in here we can use, some kind of connection to the real world. Whatever it that's doing this would be so full right, so bloated, that we have a chance to break its hold over you. Once we do that, this universe will finish its collapse. For a moment, the walls between this universe and the regular universe will fall."

"And then what?"

"And then I bring my TARDIS in through the walls between the universes, which should be enough to restore everything to its baseline. You wake up in the elevator, I continue on my merry way."

"So, wait, I'm still in the elevator?"

"Is Schrodinger's cat alive or dead?" the Doctor asked, but at Sophie's bewildered expression, he said "No and yes. You're both here and there. It's a complicated quantum state you're in at the moment, one woman existing in two places in two universes at the same time."

Sophie nodded. "Why do you think there's something in here?"

"This place is in your mind," the Doctor explained. "Well, at any rate, your mind created it. Your survival instinct will be working to circumvent this creature's hold over you, and the way to do that is to establish an emotional connection. That's why you picked this place to recreate, even if subconsciously. You have emotional connection to the store, but it's not enough. Come on, look through the shelves. There must be something."

Sophie nodded. Her mind was racing; all of it seemed impossible. She was well read enough to know science fiction when she heard it. Still, considering everything that had happened, even the more unlikely aspects of his story were making sense. Together, they began to move through the shop, searching for something. Anything. She had no idea what she was looking for, of course, but at this rate she would have settled for a toy car or a packet of biscuits or, well, anything at all.

Unfortunately, all the shelves were absolutely bare save for dust.

Finally, Sophie returned to where they'd been standing, near the counter, and checked the drawers. Inside one, she found a book. A dog-eared, much-read and annotated copy of _Birthday Letters_ by Ted Hughes.

"Doctor!" she called, and he ran back to her side. "Here," she said, handing the book to him.

"_Birthday Letters_," he said, reading the cover. "Sylvia Plath's husband, hmm? A favourite book of yours, is it?"

"Not at all," Sophie said, shaking her head. "You know it?"

"I know Syliva Plath," the Doctor said. "I was at the wedding. Lovely affair. It, um, didn't end well, as I'm sure you'll know."

"I'll say," Sophie said under her breath, deciding to let the incongruities of this man slide for a moment. Louder, she asked "Why this book?"

The Doctor considered for a moment, before shrugging. "What sort of connection did you have to it?"

"I hardly had a connection to it at all," Sophie said. "I mean, I remember studying it in high school, and I'm doing a course at uni this semester, Critical Reading. It's one of the books we're studying. I was reading it last night, actually."

"Aha!" the Doctor said, joyfully. "That's it!"

"That's it?" Sophie asked. She had to admit she was more than a little surprised. A book she barely even liked being the key to her salvation? All the books she'd read over the years, and it came down to this one?

"I was wrong," the Doctor. "It's not an emotional connection to the past you need to pull yourself. It's the future! It's hope, and possibility. That's what this book represents. It's not the book itself, it's not the words in the pages, it's not Ted Hughes, it's not the emotions it triggers, what matters is what this book represents! It represents you! What you are, what you could be!"

"What? But how, Doctor? I don't even like it!" Sophie protested, but she remembered her conversation with Leisel before her friend had vanished; the book had been in her bag, the last vestige of the stuff she'd been carrying with her all day.

"You read, Sophie, and you learn. You're a student, you work in a bookstore, you study English," he pressed. "This book was what you were going to read next. What you were going to study next, what you were going to learn about."

He pushed the book back into her hands. She looked at the faded cover, remembered picking it up the day before. "But why this book? There was a Shakespeare play as well, and Salman Rushdie. Why not either of those?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Perhaps it was just what was freshest in your mind."

"It's been with me all day," Sophie said, the realisation dawning on her. "I put it in my bag this morning, and even when all the stuff in my bag vanished, it was still there."

"Your mind was pointing you towards it," the Doctor said. "All day, it's been right under your nose."

"Are you saying it's my fault?" Sophie asked. "My fault I didn't notice the book, that I didn't figure out how to stop all this earlier?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, no. Of course not. Even if you had noticed it, the creature's hold over would probably have been too powerful for you to have broken."

Sophie nodded, sucking in a breath. "So what do I do?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I don't even know. Just read it, I suppose."

She opened the book, and flicked through the pages. She picked a poem, and even as she did, the room shook around them. It was like an earthquake. The Doctor grabbed her, supporting her, but the shaking didn't stop. "What's happening?" Sophie called over the all-pervasive rumble that filled the air.

"The creature knows what we're doing!" the Doctor replied. "It's coming here!"

Sophie's eyes widened. "What do I do?"

"Read!" the Doctor insisted.

Sophie looked down at the page, but it was hard to see, given how much the room was shaking. She gripped the book tighter, held it up to her face, and she began to read. "I glanced at him the first time as I passed him/Because I noticed (I couldn't believe it)/What I'd been ignoring."

The Doctor smiled, as the shaking subsided. It hadn't stopped yet, but was certainly lessening; it was easier now for them to stand unaided.

"Keep going!" he insisted, and she flipped to another page.

"Nobody else remembers," she read, "but I remember/Your daughter came with her armfuls, eager and happy/Helping the harvest. She has forgotten." As the last word escaped her lips, it seemed to echo through the room, and then the shaking finally stopped. She was about to ask the Doctor what to do next, when the bell above the door jingled.

Together, they turned to the door. Sophie gasped.

Coming through the door was something roughly the size and shape of a man. It was oddly out of proportion, with long, loping arms and legs, its skin a bizarre blue-black colour, almost like an eel. Its movements, too, were strange; it seemed glide, like a slow-moving viscous fluid. Its head was featureless, a black, shining sphere, and it walked with something like a undulating, slumped limp.

"What the hell is that?" Sophie exclaimed, horrified.

The Doctor swallowed. "Our opponent. A chronivorous leech."

The creature turned its head towards then, and a small hole appeared in the skin. The hole widened suddenly, and Sophie found herself staring into an enormous, slimy pink maw lined with dozens upon dozens of tiny, needle-sharp teeth. It roared, a high-pitched screech that sliced the air.

The Doctor shoved Sophie aside, sending her flying, as the leech leapt at them. The Doctor threw up his arms as the creature attacked, claws sliding into view from the folds of the leathery skin of its long arms.

"Doctor!" Sophie screamed as she saw the creature renewed its attack on him, striking out with its claws again and again. He lifted his arms against the strikes, but his resistance wouldn't hold out for long.

She ran towards them, and began to lash out with her fists and feet, kicking, punching; the Doctor struggled beneath it, and then, finally, it was dislodged for a moment. The Doctor managed to slip out from under it, and scrambled to his feet.

"Sophie, come on!" he shouted, grabbing her hand.

She aimed one last kick at the creature, which had managed somehow to shrug every single one of her blows. The Doctor pulled her away from it, towards a shelf. The leech repeated its horrific cry, a bloodcurdling, high-pitched scream that filled her with dread.

It suddenly sprang towards them, but the Doctor pulled Sophie aside. It struck the shelves, hard, and then fell to the ground. It seemed diminished, somehow, smaller.

It gathered itself together, and turned towards the Doctor and Sophie, but they were distracted by something else; where its skin had touched the wooden bookshelves, flames were breaking out. They were spreading, quickly; it wouldn't be long before they immolated the entire room. Sophie, the Doctor and the leech would be turned to ash along with it.

"What do we do, Doctor?" Sophie called over the roar of the rapidly growing flames.

The Doctor's eyes darted left and right, before settling on the door. "Come on!" he said, squeezing her hand and dragging her towards the door as the leech prepared itself for another run at them.

"But there's nothing out there!" Sophie protested.

"Better out there than in here!" the Doctor responded, and, using his shoulders, he barged through the door, shoulder first. It was flung open, and the two of them rused out into the darkness.

A roar like the wind at the top of a mountain filled the air. Behind them, the shopfront fell away, and with it the growing conflagration and the leech.

Sophie had the definite feeling that she was falling, and she clung to the Doctor for support. She shut her eyes, and when she opened them again, she wasn't falling. She and the Doctor were standing in a field of endless, eternal white.

Her first, ridiculous thought was that she had died and gone to heaven, but the pounding of her heart, the sharp taste of adrenalin at the back of her throat and the feel of the Doctor's hand in hers reassured her that he was, indeed, still alive.

"Where are we?" she asked, and she realised she wasn't speaking.

"On the borderline," the Doctor answered; she couldn't hear his voice in any sort of physical space, but she certainly heard him echo through her thoughts. "Somewhere in the dimensions between the regular universe and the universe that was created around you."

"Did we break the link?" Sophie asked him.

He nodded. "You must have done, yes."

"So what do we do now?"

The Doctor was considering, when his eyes lit up. He took Sophie by the shoulders, and said "Think about them, Sophie! Think about your world. Your apartment, your work, your friends!"

"Why?" she asked, but even as she did she began to concentrate on the people who mattered to her; Mr. and Mrs. Francis, the Rosettis, Leisel, her parents, even her lecturer and the bus driver and the people on the bus and the people in class and the customers she'd served. Her neighbours, her friends, her peers; everything she'd ever known. Foster parents, old school friends, the bitchy librarian from her last school.

"You broke the creature's hold on you," the Doctor said, "now you just need to pull yourself back towards the real world."

Nearby, a shape appeared. Dark, about the length of Sophie's forearm, she realised it resembled nothing so much as an oversized slug.

"The leech," the Doctor said, and she noted compassion in his tone. "It's dying. Don't worry, Sophie, just ignore it; focus on the sound of my voice and keep thinking about all of them. Keep thinking about the forgotten."

As she thought, she heard a noise; an actual, physical noise, not echoing thoughts. It was that noise, the grinding, scraping groan, the wheeze, an aural eternity writ large. The sound drowned out everything else, including her own thoughts. The sound of the Doctor's ship, his TARDIS.

It was coming to save them.


	10. The Forgotten: 9

**'The Forgotten'**

_9. Miranda and Prospero_

* * *

><p><strong>INTERGALACTIC PRIVATEER <em>PROSPERO<br>_ TWENTY THOUSAND YEARS LATER**

* * *

><p>"Get this bucket of bolts moving, Bleeblop!" Captain Samson McCluskey cried. He was buried waist deep in circuits and cables, trying to find the source of the mysterious power drain that had crippled his ship. Not so mysterious, really; everything on the ship was at least three decades old, and the engines themselves were half a century in the offing if they were a day, thrice-rebuilt and prone to spectacular, spontaneous breakdowns.<p>

This particular power leak, however, was coming from a conduit on the starboard side of the ship, and try as he might McCluskey couldn't figure out why. The conduit itself was almost new.

It had been six months since his encounter with the strange blue box and the man inside it who had called himself the Doctor, and Samson McCluskey had resumed his old ways; he was once again travelling the starlanes, taking bounties, carrying cargo, fixing broken down machinery. The _Prospero_and her captain were back doing what they loved.

Still, he was annoyed, and growing steadily moreso with each second that passed as Bleeblop didn't answer.

"Bleeblop!" he called. "Are you out there?"

From the bowels of the _Prospero_, he heard his co-pilot's shouted response. "You want to come out here, Sam!"

McCluskey rolled his eyes. "Why? What are you talking about?"

Bleeblop evidently didn't hear him, so McCluskey pushed himself out of the service hatch, and pulled himself up. Most of the panels in the_Prospero_'s cockpit had been removed, the circuitry inside was exposed to the cool, recycled air of the ship. Most of it was wired and patched up and mismatched, but it all functioned well enough. Most of the time.

McCluskey headed aft, past the bunks and the galley, into the hold. Bleeblop stood there in oil-stained overalls, and behind him was a blue box, almost three metres tall. A light was on its top, words glowing from its upper quarter. It had been six months, but Samson McCluskey recognised it immediately.

"Where the hell did this come from?" he demanded of Bleeblop.

The big man shrugged. "I have no idea. I was in the engine room, and I just heard this noise. A really weird, loud noise. I come out, and here it is."

McCluskey stepped forward, and rapped his knuckles against the box's surface. "Is… is that wood? Seriously?"

The creaking of hinges was the only warning he got before one side of the box swung open, and the man who'd saved his ship half a year before, with his mop of brown hair, stepped out. He was a head taller than McCluskey, and was wearing the same black coat he'd been wearing that day.

"Damn it!" McCluskey roared, jumping back. He reached for his holster, whipping out his small firearm. "What the hell are you doing on my ship?"

The man raised his hand, and batted McCluskey's firearm aside. "No need for guns, Captain. You'll remember my terms when I saved you and Bleeblop here from crashing into those stars, yes?"

McCluskey glowered. "Yes, of course."

The Doctor grinned. "Fantastic!" With his other hand, he gave McCluskey a small black box. It was heavier than it looked, and made of some sort of metal that was cool to the touch. "Dispose of this for me, would you?"

"What's in it?"

"A chronivorous leech," the Doctor said. "Nasty little critter. Poor thing overfed itself, I'm afraid. Couldn't stabilise its own genetic make-up after its feeding frenzy."

"It's dead?"

"Gorged," the Doctor said, nodding. "I wouldn't ask, but I knew you two owed me a favour, and I decided to call it in. Better to have something simple to do than have the whole favour thing hanging over one's head, am I right? I know how you hate being in debt, Captain."

McCluskey was taken aback. "I'm sorry?"

"Oh," the Doctor said, sounding amused, "my mistake. Spoilers and all that. I probably won't be meeting you again, Captain McCluskey, but you'll meet me. I was a different man back then… well, I _will_be a different man. It's all a question of how you look at it."

McCluskey was confused, but he had a reputation as a hard-ass of the space lanes to uphold. "Now, listen here, mister, I want you off my ship this instant!"

The Doctor smiled. "Oh, no problem. You'll take care of the leech?"

McCluskey sighed, reading from the Doctor's stance and expression that unless he agreed he'd have an argument on his hands. "Yeah, fine, I'll deal with the damn leech."

"Thank you," the Doctor said, nodding his appreciation to the captain, and then to Bleeblop. "If it's all the same to you, then, I'll be on my way. Also, if you meet a funny little chap travelling with a guy in a kilt and a girl with long dark hair, just trust him and do everything he says. It'll save your life."

With that, the Doctor stepped back into his blue box and shut the door behind him. Bleeblop looked at McCluskey, clearly confused, and was about to say something when a grinding noise filled the air, and a preternatural breeze sprung up. The light atop the box flashed and slowly, surely, the very box itself began to fade from existence until there was nothing left in the hold except for the same battered old cargo crates that the _Prospero_had hauled across the stars countless times.

"What was that?" Bleeblop asked at length.

"I've got no idea," McCluskey answered. "And I'm in no rush to find out. Come on, let's get back to it. We've got to find that power drain if we want to make it to Cleopatra VII in time to make the delivery."

* * *

><p>For Sophie Freeman, the week after her encounter with the Doctor seemed to fly by. Immediately after the leech had been destroyed and the sound of the Doctor's ship had filled the air, she'd woken up in the elevator, just as the Doctor had said she would, and she had rushed out into the courtyard just in time to see his TARDIS vanish into the night. She'd gone back upstairs to bed, and when she'd woken up the next morning, the day had been perfectly clear, warm and bright.<p>

She'd looked down from her window, and sure enough, the deck chairs had been smashed. She had grinned at that little detail of the world that surrounded her, but then she'd been struck by how mundane literally everything else around her was. After that, though, her day had gone by almost as normal. As soon as she'd seen Leisel, she'd pulled her friend into a hug, but for her it had only been a few hours since they'd last seen each other. She'd taken the day off work and spent the time with Leisel after uni. They'd gone to the beach, had chips from the kiosk. She'd gone out with Leisel that night, gotten drunk, and had had fun for the first time in months. She'd danced, laughed, sung terrible songs at the top of her lungs; she'd had a great night.

She'd even kissed a boy on the dance floor of an overcrowded, stinking nightclub in the city.

The next morning, though, she'd woken up with a sore throat, sore feet and a hangover, and life had gone on as normal.

Work, uni, work, onwards and onwards. She said hello to Mr. Francis, asked him how Mrs. Francis was; she saw the Rosettis at work. The bus drivers started changing again, and she could never get a seat. There were plenty of customers, packed lecture halls at uni.

She got up in the morning, and then she went to work and finally she came home only to go to sleep and start it all again, over and over. The summer stretched on, and every day was sunny, clear.

Aside from the broken deck chairs, there was no sign that the Doctor had ever been there, and she began to tell herself that he'd just been a dream; the events of that day, the shrinking world, the chronivorous leech… all of it had just been the product of an overactive, under-utilised imagination. Her headaches had gone, and everything was just like it had been before she'd woken up that night and seen the big blue box, the Doctor's TARDIS, in the courtyard of her building.

And so she found herself, a week after it had all begun, in the crowded hall for another of Professor Lancer's lectures, drumming her fingers on the arms of seat. She hadn't been able to focus for the last few days; she'd been too distracted to do any uni work, and even at her job she'd been distant, off her game.

Still, she hadn't dreamt of the car crash that had killed her parents all week, and whenever her doubts about the Doctor came to mind, she thought of that achievement.

"Hey, Soph," Leisel said as she dropped into the seat beside her. "How are you?"

"Good thanks, Leisel," Sophie said, shooting her a smile. "Still feeling a bit out of it, truth be told."

"Really?" Leisel said, frowning with concern. "Last week you seemed so happy."

Sophie shrugged. "I'm not sad. I don't know, I just feel kind of listless, you know?"

"Well," Leisel said, "sorry to rain on your pity parade with some good news, but do you remember that girl I met out at the club the other night?"

Sophie laughed at Leisel's pity parade line, but nodded. "Yeah? The cute one, with the brown pixie cut?"

"Yeah," Leisel grinned, nodding. "I'm going on a date with her this afternoon!"

"Oh my God, Leisel," Sophie said, pulling her friend into a hug. "That is so cool! She was gorgeous. What's the plan?"

"Coffee," Leisel said, returning the hug. "But I don't know, it's just really… ah! I haven't been on a date in so long. And you saw her, right? She was so cute."

"Beautiful," Sophie agreed, happy for her friend. "What's her name?"

"Miranda," she answered, grinning.

"As in Prospero's Miranda? Nice," Sophie said, and suddenly she remembered the Doctor telling her about that space ship, the _Prospero_. What was more, they were about to start studying _The Tempest_. In the afterglow of Leisel telling her about her new belle, Sophie had to come clean. "I didn't tell you this, but the other night I met a man."

"A man?" Leisel said, grinning. "You don't mean that dude you hooked up with when we were out the other night, right? I meant to tell you, he was like, eighteen. You paedo."

Slapping Leisel playfully on the shoulder, Sophie shook her head with a laugh. "No, not him. Jesus. A man. Like, an actual, proper man."

Leisel raised an eyebrow. "Do tell."

"Well," Sophie said, and she thought of the Doctor. She'd known him only for what was, in reality, a few minutes, and even if nothing that had happened to them had actually happened in this physical universe, it had definitely happened. Was was more, it had definitely had a profound impact on her. But what could she tell Leisel? She couldn't even go over the events of that night in her own head without thinking that she was crazy. "He's tall. Very tall. Broad shoulders. A big mop of dark hair."

"Sexy," Leisel intoned, but Sophie shook her head.

"Not like that," she said. "Well, actually, objectively, he is kind of sexy, but that's besides the point. He had, _has_, this way about him. He can ramble on, and you've got absolutely no idea what he's going on about, and then he'll look at you and you'll understand it. Everything he's said, whether it's nonsense or not, will suddenly make perfect sense."

Leisel blinked. "Wow."

"I'm sorry," Sophie said, with a smile, "I'm not really sure what I'm saying."

"No, no, it's okay," Leisel said, smiling back. "Go on."

"He came in to work," she explained, continuing. "It was weird, too. He was wearing a big black coat in the middle of summer, and he was kind of forward. Kind of way too forward, actually, but I ran into him again and it was just… different. Something about it, about him, just felt right."

"Right how?"

"Like he was the person I've been looking for all my life," Sophie said, and somehow, having said it out loud, she knew that she meant it.

"Wow!" Leisel repeated, grinning. "That's a pretty intense crush you've got there."

Sophie shook her head, and couldn't help but laugh. "No, no, no, it's nothing like that, really. He's a bit too old for me, anyway."

"How old is he?"

"I don't know, late twenties, early thirties?" she answered with a shrug. "Maybe. He seemed a lot older, actually. A _lot_older."

Leisel flashed a knowing smile. "So, he's very tall, broad in the shoulders, about thirty, thick, dark hair, wearing a big coat in summer?"

"Um, yeah?"

"Is that him?"

Leisel pointed, and Sophie followed her gaze to the front of the lecture hall. "Jesus Christ!" she shouted, nearly falling off her chair when she saw who was standing at the lectern.

It was him. The Doctor.

He cleared his throat into the microphone. "Um, hello, everyone," The hall quietened as the students turned as one to look at the man addressing them. "Sorry to disturb your chats before class, but Professor Lancer's running late. Had a spot of car trouble, unfortunately. Now, I was wondering… is there a Sophie Freeman here?"

Leisel turned to Sophie, her jaw slack. Swallowing, her heart pounding in her ears, Sophie slowly lifted her hand.

The Doctor, from up at the lectern, slowly scanned the crowd until he saw her raised hand. "Ah," he said, and his voice was suddenly so confident, so calm, just as it had been in the burning book store. "There you are."

He grinned at her, and the last week's worth of fear and uncertainty evaporated from her mind. He was here, he was real; it hadn't been a dream.

"Now, Ms. Freeman, if you wouldn't mind joining me for a quick chat outside?"

With that, the Doctor withdrew from the lectern and slipped out of the lecture hall. Sophie looked to Leisel, unable to speak.

"Well," Leisel said, "go!"

"But that… that is so weird," Sophie muttered. "But then again," she admitted, "that whole night was pretty weird."

"Go!" Leisel urged, and suddenly Sophie was keenly aware that the two of them were being watched intently by most of the lecture hall. Sheepishly collecting her bag, she said bye to Leisel and headed for the door.

She stepped into the corridor outside, but she couldn't see anyone waiting for her.

"Sophie," she heard from behind her, and turned to see the Doctor. His arms were folded over his chest, and he was leaning against the TARDIS, which had, miraculously, been manoeuvred into the wide corridor, on the other side of the lecture hall's door.

Torn by the desire to hug him and the desire to punch him, Sophie simply said "About time you showed up."

He grinned. "Sorry, I had some business to take care of."

"Yeah," Sophie said, "I guess you must have. It's been a week!"

He at least had the class to look a bit guilty as he answered. "Well, that's the thing about the TARDIS. She's never very reliable. She'll probably make me pay through the nose for saying that, but it's true."

"What is it?" Sophie asked, and rested her hand against its surface. "Is that wood?"

"Well, it's meant to feel like wood," the Doctor said. "It's actually a wood facsimile, created by the TARDIS' chameleon circuit, designed to help it better fit in with its surroundings."

Sophie arched an eyebrow. "To better fit in with its surroundings, it looks like a giant blue box? And what is a Police Public Call Box, anyway?"

"When the TARDIS arrives in a location in time and space, in the first nano-second after it materialises, an array of sensors scan every molecule within a thousand kilometres down to the most charming quark. It compiles all that data into a twelve dimensional model, and picks the best disguise it possibly can," the Doctor said, his voice gaining volume as his explanation went on.

"And then?" Sophie prompted, when he didn't continue.

"And then it decides to look like a police box from 1950s London," the Doctor said with a shrug. "It's been doing that for a few hundred years now, and I can't fix it… not that she'd let me, anyway. I think she's grown quite attached to this look."

Sophie exhaled through clenched teeth. Before, she'd been too panicked to be annoyed. Now, she was infuriated. "You make no sense. You know that?"

He laughed. "I do make sense. I promise. Some things are just complicated. I swear to you, everything I have told you so far has been the truth."

"Okay then," she said, nodding. "What happened after you left? That night, after the whole collapsing world thing and that crazy leech. Where did you go? Oh, and what was that leech thing?"

"Excellent questions," the Doctor said, and she noticed he'd been counting them off on his fingers. "Number one: after I left, I went to get rid of the leech, and you went on living your life. Number two: I went to the _Prospero_. You remember the ship I told you about? They're going to do the actual getting rid of the leech. You know, in a few tens of thousands of years. Number three: that leech, the chronivorous leech, was a member of a group called the Trickster's Brigade. They look for temporal distortions, like those surrounding you, and then they start playing around. The leech was just eating; sometimes members of the Brigade create entire parallel universes around their victims, just to wreak havoc."

Sophie shook her head. "if I hadn't seen all of that stuff that night, I wouldn't believe a word of this."

"But you did see that stuff," the Doctor said knowingly.

Sophie grinned. "Yes. Yes I did."

"The leech found you," the Doctor said, resuming his explanation. "Created that parallel universe around you using the temporal energy it was eating through you. It did all this, mind, about a second after it first latched on to you."

"Really?" Sophie said, frowning. "So where did it come from?"

"My guess is the elevator," the Doctor said, with a shrug, "but I'm not sure, really."

"I knew there was a reason I hated that thing," she said, with a grin.

"It gorged itself," the Doctor explained. "Ate too much. When you began to remember everything, when you forced it to deal with you and not just your temporal signature, you overwhelmed it; it didn't have time to digest the energy it had already absorbed."

Sophie nodded. "Okay, so I guess that all makes sense… and this box? You said you were a time traveller."

"I am," the Doctor confirmed. "Not just time, though. Space as well. Ever wondered what the Horsehead Nebula looks like close up? It's pretty beautiful, I can tell you that. The box, my TARDIS, is my ship. Takes me anywhere I want to go. Or anywhere she thinks I should go."

"Is it alive?" Sophie asked. "You keep using female pronouns, speaking as though it has free will."

"I suppose that she's not alive in the organic sense," the Doctor said, "but she's certainly got a presence, and she's definitely got a will."

"It must get a bit cramped," she said, sizing the box up.

"Oh, you'd be surprised."

Sophie looked at him, and frowned. "Why did you come back, then? I mean, if it can take you anywhere you want to go, any time throughout history, why would you come back to Newcastle? I mean, I like it here, but it's not that great."

"Two reasons," the Doctor said. "One: I figured I owed you an explanation of what happened, and two: well… I like you."

"You _like_ me?"

The Doctor ignored her, and kept talking. "I travel, yes, but I don't always do it by myself. I've had… friends, before. Companions. Lots of them. They come with me, see the stars. I haven't had anyone travel with me for a while now, and to be honest it's lost its charm for me, the lonesome, aimless wondering. I don't like it. So, what do you say?"

Sophie blinked. "What do I say to what?"

"To coming with me," the Doctor said. He rapped the TARDIS with his knuckles. "Travelling with me."

Sophie couldn't help it. She smiled. Still, she had commitments and so shook her head. "I can't. I have uni, a job. Friends."

The Doctor just smiled. "It's a time machine, Sophie. We could see the entire universe and you'd still make it back to this very class before your professor even shows up. Come inside, take a look around."

With that, he straightened up, pushed open the TARDIS doors and stepped inside. Sophie hesitated. Her mind was racing; yes, he'd saved her life, but so much of what he'd said so far had seemed impossible, insane. But then, of course, it was no more insane than what had actually happened to her that night a week before.

Taking a deep breath, she followed him inside.


	11. The Forgotten: 10

**'The Forgotten'**

10. _TARDIS_

* * *

><p>"It's bloody huge!" was the first thing she said after she entered the TARDIS.<p>

Around her stretched a cavernous chamber, with a high, vaulted ceiling. The walls, burnished gold and bronze in colour, seemed to shine with an inner light. Beside the door was an ornate coat rack. She was standing on metal grating, the same colour of the walls, and beneath it she could see machinery, which glowed intermittently with a fine blue light.

Roundels of various sizes were set into the walls in a consistent pattern, rising up towards the ceiling. Not far from where she was standing, a ramp led up to a raised tier with a glass floor, rimmed by a rail. Atop this was what looked like some kind of control console, six-sided, with a glowing blue-green column rising up from its centre. Beneath the raised tier was more machinery, which seemed to have been disassembled and put back together over and over again.

There was also a couch and an armchair under there, a small bookshelf with a phonograph atop nearby. There were two passageways leading out of the enormous chamber, suggesting even more rooms beyond.

The Doctor, standing next to the ramp leading up the console, grinned. "Yes it is."

"How does all this fit in here?" she said, staring around in wonder. "And what's that sound?"

A calming hum filled the air, emanating from all around them.

"That's the sound of the TARDIS' engines when they're not in use," the Doctor said. "Think of it like a computer on standby."

"It's…" she said, unable to quite grasp the words. "It's incredible!"

The Doctor nodded knowingly. "I've heard a lot of people react to the whole bigger-on-the-inside thing, but no one's had quite that… visceral of a reaction."

Sophie glanced at him. "Are you kidding me? You are not mocking me right now."

"No!" the Doctor insisted. "Not at all. Look, the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendent. You're standing in pure mathematics made reality; the inside and the outside fit together through the mathematical manipulation of space, the welding of the two different dimensional points via theoretical physics."

"I'm an English student, Doctor," Sophie reminded him, "and the reason I'm an English student is because maths and science sound like gobbledegook to me."

The Doctor grinned. "Fair enough. Tell you what, why don't you come up here and I can show you."

He made his way up the ramp towards the console, and Sophie followed him, the sound of her footsteps on the grating resounding through the chamber. She mounted the raised tier, and saw that the six-sided console was crammed with levers and switches, gauges and even what looked like a bicycle pump. There was a telephone, a keyboard, a screen hanging down from the upper section of the console. There were dozens of readout screens and, Sophie noted, a dog-eared paper back copy of a pulp fiction magazine.

"Adventures in Time and Space," she read from the front cover. "Nice."

"Vintage 1936," the Doctor said from the console, where he was manipulating controls. "Do you see here?" he said, indicating the screen. "This is the scanner. Over there," he pointed over her shoulder, to another screen set into the wall, "is the other scanner. The big blue thing? That's the time rotor. This is the console. Down the ramp is the sitting area."

Sophie took it all in, her mind still reeling. "This is unbelievable."

"Thank you," the Doctor said, smiling benevolently.

She rolled her eyes at his response. "No, literally, I don't believe you."

"Well," he said, eyes still twinkling. "You might believe this." He hit another control, and all at once the floor bucked beneath her feet. She fell on tight to the side of the console, and heard that same noise she'd heard the night this had all started. The sound of the TARDIS engines. The thing the Doctor had called the time rotor brightened and began moving up and down.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. "Where are you taking me?"

"You'll see!" the Doctor cried over the sound of the engines. Clinging on for dear life, Sophie cursed him. Then, just as quickly as it had started, the sound of the engines died away. He nodded towards the TARDIS doors, which from this side looked as though they perfectly matched the exterior doors. "Go have a look."

Sophie nodded, and went back down the ramp, towards the doors. She took a deep breath as she rested her hand against the wood. Finally, she gave them a push.

The door swung open, and her eyes widened.

Stretching out before her, beneath a velvet black sky, was a craggy, broken grey surface of dust and craters. And there, hanging in the sky, was a small blue orb. She was standing on the moon. She gaped, speechless, as she felt the Doctor fall into place beside her.

"Now do you believe me?"

She nodded mutely.

He grinned. "So, Sophie Freeman. All of time and space is now at your fingertips. Where did you want to go? Alien worlds to stand under alien skies? Did you want to meet the Beatles, perhaps?"

Sophie turned to him, tears shining in her eyes. "My parents?"

The Doctor's expression darkened. "No. I'm sorry, but there are rules; limits to where I can take you. If you met your own parents, the temptation to try and alter their fate would be too strong. The results could be catastrophic."

Sophie was bitterly disappointed, but she understood. "Okay, fine. So, the parents are out."

"I'm afraid so," the Doctor nodded.

She scoffed. "All of time and space… you certainly know how to paralyse a girl with too many options, Doctor, don't you?"

He offered her a sympathetic smile. "It's what I do, I'm afraid."

"Ah, what the hell," she said, "how about Tokyo?"

"Tokyo? What, you mean, in 2011?"

"Sure," Sophie said, "why not? I've always wanted to go. You did say anywhere in time and space, why not start there? From what I've heard, it's practically a different planet anyway."

The Doctor laughed, and shut the doors. He led Sophie back to the TARDIS console. "Fine," he said, "Tokyo it is. Now, while I set the coordinates, how about you go find your room."

"My room?" she asked.

"Well, I'm guessing you'd like somewhere to sleep," the Doctor said.

"Well, yeah," she agreed, "but all my stuff…"

"Will still be waiting here on Earth for you when you get home," the Doctor said, smiling. "Now, go on. Down the left passageway, past the kitchen, you should find the bedrooms. Just keep going until you find one you like."

"How much of this place is there?"

"A lot," the Doctor answered. "I'll show you around some day. Now, off you go."

With another dazzled glance cast around the TARDIS, Sophie disappeared off towards the bedrooms. As she left the console room, the inner light of the chamber dimmed, and the TARDIS' engines made a groaning noise that sounded almost queasy.

The Doctor winced, and patted the console. "I know, girl. She feels wrong."

The scanner screen above the console came to life, displaying an article from a newspaper the scanner identified as the Country Leader. The article was led by a picture of a smiling man and woman, and a small girl with curly hair wrapped in the man's arms. The caption identified them as Sarah and Matthew Freeman, with daughter Sophie.

The Doctor's eyes widened as he read the article.

A few moments after he finished, the scanner screen switched to an image of Sophie. Information began scrolling down the screen beside her picture; her place of birth, her date of birth. Then, to his horror, a date of death: March 2, 1996. The date of Australia's federal election. The day of the car crash that had killed her parents. The car crash that was, apparently, meant to have killed her.

He froze. "We have to help her," he said to the TARDIS.

The machine didn't respond, but Sophie's voice did. "Help who?"

Slapping a button on the console, which shut down the scanner, the Doctor turned to welcome his newest companion back into the console room. "I believe there's a little girl in Tokyo who's just dropped her ice cream. Shall we go buy her a new one?"

Sophie shook her head and smiled. "I suppose we'd better."

The Doctor grinned at her, but what he'd just seen on the scanner weighed heavily on his mind. Still, he shook that off. Hitting a few buttons, he declared. "Coordinates set. Guess what, Sophie Freeman?"

"What, Doctor?" she asked, clearly deciding to play along.

"This is just the beginning," he said and he slammed down one of the levers. The engines roared, the floor shook and the TARDIS, with the Doctor and Sophie aboard, disappeared into eternity.

* * *

><p><strong>The story continues in 'The Deadly Tower'<strong>

**COMING SOON**


	12. The Deadly Tower: 1

**Historian's Note: **this adventure takes place immediately after 'The Forgotten'.

* * *

><p><strong>'The Deadly Tower'<strong>

_1. Infection_

* * *

><p>The maintenance access ways of Tower 402 were wide enough for two human beings to walk abreast, and tall enough for them both to walk upright, but the stench that filled the air, that stuck in nostrils and clung to skin and cloth, the oppressive darkness, and the poor ventilation were enough to cause workers attacks of claustrophobia in workers after a few minutes.<p>

Tanaka and Miho had been trawling through those exact access ways for four hours now, their way lit only by the palm beacons they carried, their only company the miniscule blue lights that glowed at frequent intervals on the ceiling. They both carried, aside from their palm beacons, handheld scanning modules, and though, for the first few hours of their sojourn into the access ways, so rarely used by living, breathing individuals, had been easy enough, the ordeal was starting to wear thin on both of them.

"Why us?" Tanaka moaned. He'd never hated anything as much as he hated his thick orange coverall uniform in that moment. "Of all the godforsaken jobs on this godforsaken…"

Miho rolled her eyes. "Are you kidding me? This has got to be the fifth time we've had this conversation since we got down here. 'Why us?' Because we were rostered on. And you've barely put in a hard days' work since you joined the maintenance crew."

Tanaka at least had the self-respect to look offended at that slight, even if it was true. "Look, I'll have you know that my repair turnaround is one of the fastest in the tower…"

"Yeah, yeah, Tanaka, I've heard it all before," Miho said, shaking her head.

"So you know where this is going…"

"Yes, Tanaka," Miho groaned. "I know exactly where this is going."

"Have you changed your answer this time, I should I hold the question over for conversation number six?"

This time, she couldn't help but smile. "No. You can ask the question again."

Tanaka grinned. "You're going to get a drink with me after work?"

Miho smirked. "Not a chance." At his crestfallen expression, that smirk softened into a smile. "I like hearing the question, though. Maybe ask me again tomorrow, when you get the stink of these tunnels off of you…"

Laughing, Tanaka nodded. "I have got to say, though, Miho, this has got to be the dumbest assignment we've ever been given, and I mean _ever_."

"Better we find the disabled bot in the tunnels before it gets sucked into the filtration systems."

"At least we'd know where it was then," Tanaka murmured.

"What was that?"

"At least we'd know where it was then," Tanaka repeated, louder, "and we wouldn't have to go hunting through these damn, stinking tunnels to find it. Also, can you even believe that we have to go _looking_?"

This time, Miho agreed. "I know. These upgrades have slowed down every system in the tower's mainframe."

Tanaka glanced up at the small blue light situated directly above them and swore quietly. "Useless."

"Useless?" Miho said, surprised. "No way. So, the tower's a bit buggy since the upgrades. Earth Command will be sending the software patches any day now, and then everything will be fine."

"And in the meantime, we're down here, going over every square centimetre of these damn access ways until we find one broken down bot," Tanaka said, shaking his head. "Why can't the internal scanners find it? Why can't we just send more bots down to retrieve it?"

"You just answered your own damn question, Tanaka," Miho said. "The bugs in the system have brought down the internal sensors in this section. No internal sensors, no way to control the bots."

Tanaka grumbled something about her making a good point, but before he could raise any more objections, she lifted a hand.

"Look, Tanaka, I like you a lot, but you have got to be the whiniest guy on the crew," she said, not unkindly. "I swear, if you're even half this whiny when you take me out for that drink, I will not hesitate to walk out on you."

Tanaka's eyebrow lifted in surprise. "Hang on, is that a yes? As in, yes you will indeed get a drink with me?"

Miho sighed theatrically. "I suppose I've backed myself into a corner, now, haven't I?"

Tanaka nodded, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. He'd been pursuing Miho for a few months now, and more than a few of her co-workers had whispered amongst themselves that he'd joined the maintenance crew just to get closer to her. Miho had to admit that, although creepy, his doggedness was certainly charming, in its own weird little way. He was definitely smart, and quite handsome for someone who spent most of his days hands deep in damaged circuitry.

"One drink," Miho said. "After we find this bot."

With a renewed zeal, Tanaka lifted his palm beacon and charged on ahead. Disappearing into the darkness of the tunnel that stretched away before Miho, she saw no sign of him for a few seconds, other than the retreating light of his beacon.

Then she heard him give a cry of pain before a heavy thud resounded through the access way. It sounded like he'd fallen, hard.

"Tanaka!" she shouted, running forward, careful to run the beacon over the decking beneath her feet. After she heard no answer, she shouted, louder, "Tanaka!"

"Yeah," she heard him say length from the darkness. "I'm here."

She shone her light towards the sound of his voice, only to see him slowly pull himself up from the ground. "Watch where you're going!" she chided. "I don't want to drag you all the way back to medical by myself."

"Sorry, sorry," he said, "but I think I found the bot."

The walls and floor of the tunnel were streaked with the dark remains of waste, both solid and liquid, and the dome of the bot had been similarly darkened, blending in perfectly. No wonder Tanaka hadn't seen it.

He was running his hand scanner over it. "That's odd," he said, "there's nothing wrong with the internal circuitry."

"Must be a software problem," Miho said. "Out of the way, buster. That's my speciality."

The bot's dome was about a third of a metre wide, housing the central processing computers and micro-thrusters, as well as the anti-grav generators. Dangling from the flat side of the dome were eight manipulator arms and a bevy of sensors. The arms bristled with tools, including fusion welders, plasma torches and laser cutters.

Miho reached down to touch the bot, when suddenly it seemed to hum to life.

The antigravs flared, and it drifted up from the decking. Miho helped Tanaka to his feet instantly, both of them shocked.

"What the hell…?" Miho said, reaching towards the now-hovering bot. "Bot, state your serial number."

With its high-pitched, tinny, mechanical croak, the bot replied "_Unit Two-Three-Seven-Seven-Akira._"

"Seven-Seven-Akira, what is your current assignment?"

"_Sterilisation,_" the bot announced, and it glided towards them.

Miho and Tanaka took involuntary steps back. "Um, excuse me?" Tanaka asked the machine. "Sterilisation? What does that mean?"

"I have no idea," Miho said. She sighed. "The software problems must have spread to the bot fleet. Damn it!"

The bot hovered there, its scanners twitching towards them.

"Seven-Seven-Akira, please clarify," Miho said. "What is your current assignment?"

"_Sterilisation,_" the bot repeated.

"Sterilising what?" Tanaka said. "It can't mean access ways… they have autosterilising units built into the wall panels."

"Exactly," Miho nodded. "Seven-Seven-Akira, please clarify. What are you sterilising?"

"_The infection._"

"What infection?" Tanaka asked.

Even as the words left his lips, the bot's manipulator arms lifted; the fusion welder, the plasma torch, the laser cutter and all the other devices flared into life. It advanced on Miho and Tanaka, slashing, cutting, burn, eviscerating; they barely had time to scream. The small blue lights spaced at regular intervals in the ceiling watched impassively.


	13. The Deadly Tower: 2

**'The Deadly Tower'**

_2. Tokyo_

* * *

><p>She was free.<p>

She was surrounded by sound, by colour, by the beating of her heart and by the smiling face of a man who had saved her life, who had extended his hand to her and called to her, asked her to join him. Asked her to take his hand and see the universe.

It had been a week since Sophie Freeman first met the Doctor, and technically she hadn't even met him then; it had been a mental projection of him, a notion made manifest in a pocket universe that had been created around her and rapidly begun to collapse. She had thought, in her darkest moments, that she was going crazy; that the grief of her parents' death fifteen years before had finally overwhelmed her, crushed her, doomed her.

Instead, it had been something for more fantastical. A small, inter-dimensional creature called a chronovorious leech, a member of an organisation the Doctor called the Trickster's Brigade, which had sought to feed off the time distortions that surrounded Sophie. With the Doctor's help, she had defeated the leech, and then he'd vanished.

Her life had been one of crushing monotony; her work, her schooling, the same dream of her parents' car crash, night after night. Then, a week after she'd woken up after defeating the leech, the Doctor had come back.

He'd offered her an escape.

He'd said that he had a time machine, a magical box that could take her anywhere she wanted to go. He'd taken her to the moon to prove it, and she'd watched the Earth rise over the Sea of Tranquillity. She'd accepted his offer; of course she had. How could she not?

Now here she was, in the Doctor's magical machine, his TARDIS, in a control room many orders of magnitude larger than the tall blue box that the vessel appeared to be from the outside. Dimensional transcendentalism, the Doctor had called it, mathematics made manifest, but to Sophie, it only meant that the inside was bigger than the outside, that the old axiom about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic held true.

The mighty engines of the TARDIS, which tore apart time and space as if they were tissue paper before stitching them back together, sung their ancient song around, filling her with a mixture of joy and wonder.

This was her first trip in the TARDIS; she hoped that this feeling, whatever it was, wouldn't go away.

She was clinging to the console in the centre of the console room, a cavernous camber of vaulted heights and metal decking, its roundel-punctured walls glowing with a strange inner radiance. The console itself sat atop a raised, glass-floored tier connected to the main floor by a ramp, ringed by a railing, perched above cobbled-together and rebuilt machinery and, incongruously enough, a sitting area featuring a tattered couch and a bookshelf with a phonograph itself.

The console itself was a slapdash array of buttons and switches, guages and levers, with a keyboard and a monitor amidst bits and bobs that looked, variously, like bicycle pumps and astrolabes. From its centre rose a peaked blue column, which the Doctor had identified as the time rotor, that rose and fell in time with the engines and glowed with a brilliant blue-green light.

As odd as all this was, however, as odd as the police box exterior was, none of it could even hope to compete in an oddness competition with the man standing at the other side of the console, tapping controls and pulling levers.

Blindingly tall, with a mop of dark brown hair, pale skin and wide brown eyes, he looked to be in his thirties, but seemed, somehow, so much older. He wore, as he always seemed to, a long dark coat and dark trousers. Indeed, all his clothes seemed to be a midnight black.

He was, without a doubt, the most wonderful, confounding, frustrating man that Sophie had ever met, and had she had a second to think since he'd welcomed her aboard, she would most certainly have demanded that she take her home immediately.

Sophie herself was willowy, reed-thin, with shoulder-length curly brown hair. She was still wearing the jeans and yellow blouse she'd been wearing to university the day the Doctor had come back to get her.

She had begun to think that he'd been a dream, the only sign that he'd ever even existed the smashed remnants of the wooden deck chairs in her apartment building's courtyard where the TARDIS had landed the night she'd been sucked into the parallel universe. Then he'd stepped into her lecture hall, asked to speak to her, and from being a dream, a fantasy of the escape she'd craved, he'd offered to take her anywhere.

"Tokyo!" the Doctor cried, flinging open his arms as he slammed down one last lever. "2009. Not exactly your home timeframe, but I thought a small trip into the past couldn't hurt."

Sophie blinked. "You mean… you mean we've just arrived in Tokyo?"

"Of course," the Doctor said. "A few minutes ago we were standing on the moon. And now here you are. Tokyo. Japan. Just like you asked."

Sophie smiled. "Fantastic!"

The Doctor grinned, and started to move towards the TARDIS doors. Sophie reached out, though, grabbing him by the elbow. "What's wrong?"

"I have a few questions," she said.

"More?" he groaned, unimpressed.

"Fine," she said, letting him go as if stung. "Don't worry about it then."

"Reverse psychology doesn't work on me," he warned. "No psychology works on me. Poor Jung. I think I might have broken him, actually." At Sophie's canted eyebrows, though, he sighed. "Fine. One question!"

Sophie nodded. "All right then. When we were on the moon… how come when we opened the doors the atmosphere didn't get sucked out?"

The Doctor had to fight to keep from laughing. "You get one question, and that's it?"

"Oh, I have many more questions," Sophie assured him. "That one's just especially, shall we say, _burning_ at the moment."

"Easy," the Doctor said. "The TARDIS is programmed to protect the interior from external environmental factors, including the vacuum of space, or the limited atmosphere of a planetoid like Earth's moon. If I wanted, I could extend the air shell up to a radius of ten metres from the TARDIS."

Sophie nodded. "Ordinarily, I'd say you were a mad man, but considering, you know, the whole taking-me-to-the-moon-bigger-on-the-inside-phone-box-leech-trying-to-kill-me-in-another-universe thing, I'm going to take your word for it."

"Probably a good plan," the Doctor nodded with a grin. "So, shall we take a look at Tokyo?"

Sophie smiled, but didn't move for the door. "You're not going to use the scanner? See what's out there?"

"Why do that? It spoils the surprise."

She frowned, then. "Doctor, you said you'd tell me the truth."

His expression hardened. "Yes. I did."

"I expect you to hold to that promise," Sophie said, her expression matching his own. "Tell me the truth."

He nodded. "I will, Sophie. Now, come on."

She headed down the ramp, joining him on the lower level, and together they walked towards the TARDIS doors. From the inside, they were the only visible sign of the TARDIS' idiosyncratic outside; even the sign shone above the doors from the outside was visible in reverse here. Police Public Call Box.

"Well," the Doctor said when they reached the doors, "would you like to do the honours?"

Sophie grinned. "I'd love to, Doctor."

She pushed on the doors, and they swung open. She took a deep breath, and felt the adrenalin course through her. Excitement, wonder, awe; her every fibre sung with it all. "Here we go," she whispered to herself, and took her first step out of the TARDIS…

…right into a conference room.

Wood-panelled, with plush carpet and an enormous lozenge-shaped table ringed by high-backed leather chairs, the room screamed business and good-taste. The TARDIS had landed flush in a corner, directly across from a wide window, which was covered by what looked like blinds. In each corner of the room, small blue lights glinted down.

"So this is not what I was expecting," Sophie said, looking around.

"Why not?" the Doctor asked, following her out. He looked around the room, and immediately frowned. "That's not right."

"What's wrong?" Sophie asked.

"I'm not sure, to be honest," the Doctor told her. "See the computer panels embedded in the table surface?"

Sure enough, Sophie hadn't noticed that in front of each chair was a small computer screen. All of them were dark, but they looked decidedly high-tech. "That's some pretty nifty technology," she admitted, going over to examine one. Curious, she touched the screen, which came to life.

The screen flashed a message, which read "WELCOME", before running dark, with only a flashing underscore visible.

"Wow," she said. "Touch activated."

"I suppose it's waiting for a password," the Doctor said, and he nudged her gently out of the way. Reaching into the pocket of his coat, he pulled out a thirty-centimetre long metallic cylinder, which tapered at the end. The grip looked sculpted for the Doctor's hand, and inlaid filigree markings seemed to be made of chrome or electrum or some other shining silvery metal.

The Doctor thumbed a control, and the end pointing towards the computer screen lit up, a small green light shining. A high-pitched, musical tone filled the air.

"What's that?" Sophie asked.

"Sonic screwdriver," the Doctor said, distracted. She saw that the screen was now cycling through images and text at an extraordinary speed; she found herself wondering if he could make it all out. "Just looking for some…"

He trailed off, and Sophie nudged him. "Some what?"

He swallowed. "Some information. Um, Sophie, it seems I've made a mistake."

She was somewhat taken aback by this; he didn't seem like the kind of man to admit his mistakes so readily. "Uh, all right, then…?"

"Yes," the Doctor said. "I don't think we're in Tokyo."

"Then where are we?" she asked.

He deactivated the sonic screwdriver, slipped it back into his pocket, and made for the window that dominated the wall opposite the TARDIS. There was another computer panel, inset beside the window. He tapped it, and it activated instantly, displaying a few controls. Sophie went to join him, but before she could, he pressed one particular control.

The blinds that obscured the window, which she now realised weren't blinds at all but was in fact some kind of exterior window covering, began to slide upwards.

Her jaw dropped, and her stomach went through the floor.

Outside, she could make out a rocky landscape, but dozens upon dozens of identical, enormous, immense skyscrapers dominated the view. Monstrosities of glass and metal, they reared up from the ground, jutting into a sky that Sophie realised now was unclouded and packed with stars. She'd never seen a night like this before.

Then it hit her. Two moons. Up there, in the sky, were two rocky, pockmarked, potato-shaped moons.

She was on a different planet. Even seeing the Earth from the surface of its own moon hadn't felt like this; the adrenalin coursed through her, and her stomach was suddenly in her throat. She was on her knees a second later, losing her breakfast.

"Hey, hey, hey," the Doctor said, on his knees beside her, patting her back. "It's okay!"

"It's a different planet!" Sophie protested, spitting out the last of the vomit. "Oh, God."

The Doctor couldn't help but smile. "I've taken a lot of people to a lot of places, but I don't think any of them have ever reacted _quite_ like that."

"Sorry," she mumbled, as he helped her to her feet.

He shook his head. "No, it's fine. I should have been a little more tactful with the whole we're-on-a-different-planet revelation, I suppose."

"Yeah," she agreed, wishing she could get the taste out of her mouth, "A little warning would have been appreciated." She heard, at the edge of her awareness, a small whirring sound, as if of small automatic door opening, and then a high-pitched whine. "Ah, what's that?"

The Doctor looked around, and touched her on the shoulder. "In the interest of preventing another loss of stomach contents, I think I should tell you that there are a pair of small robots hovering about three inches off the floor."

Sophie's eyes widened, and she leaned around the Doctor. Two small, domed robots were indeed hovering above the floor, towards where she'd been sick. One of them extended a small vacuum hose, while the other used some sort of laser device to scour the floor.

"What the hell are they?" Sophie exclaimed.

"Cleaning bots," the Doctor said, smiling. He nudged one with his booted foot, and said with some akin to affection "How's it going, little fellow?"

As quickly as they'd come, the bots finished their cleaning and sped away into the small hatch they'd come from.

Sophie blinked. "I'm a long way from home, aren't I?"

"Only about thirty thousand light years," the Doctor said with a grin.

"So you know where we are?"

The Doctor headed for the window, and stared out at the incredible vista beyond. "If I had to guess, I'd say we're on the planet New Tokyo, in the year twenty thousand and nine."

"So only thirty thousand light years and eighteen millennia off," Sophie said, teasingly. "I thought you could go wherever you wanted…"

"Doesn't always work out that way," the Doctor admitted, "and considering that your immediate reaction to stepping out of the TARDIS and seeing that you were, in fact, on another planet was…"

"Yeah, yeah," Sophie said, waving her hand.

The Doctor smirked, glad to have one up on her, but decided not to press it further. "New Tokyo is a human colony world, settled mainly by people from what you'd consider east Asia. No atmosphere, just a solar wind blasted rock, orbited by two moons."

"So why settle here?" Sophie asked; her initial anxiety was forgotten, replaced now by pure wonder.

"Why not?" the Doctor said. "Rare minerals, strategic value… who knows? The point is, where once was there was a barren rock, now there's a colony. Millions of human beings, living their lives where nothing has ever lived before. It's more than impressive, it's absolutely beautiful."

Sophie grinned. "Do you always get so poetic?"

"More often than not," the Doctor admitted. "Unfortunately, like everything, this colony has a dark side. And like every dark side, that dark side is a matter of perspective."

"Okay," Sophie said, nodding, "then what's the dark side? From your perspective."

"See these towers?"

"No," Sophie said facetiously, but the Doctor ignored her.

"Inside, there's… just about everything you can imagine. Residential apartments, hydroponic gardens, businesses, schools, libraries, cinemas, museums, even hospitals," the Doctor was saying. "There are thousands of people inside every single one of those buildings, and they never have to leave. There's machinery recycling everything, gardens to grow fresh food; endless supplies of oxygen, water. Everything a human being needs to survive. Millions of human beings, who are born, go to school, find a job, meet someone, fall in love, marry and have children, who then repeat the pattern. All inside the one tower, without ever having to leave."

"I suppose I can relate," Sophie said with a shrug, before blinking uncomfortably. "That's… _depressing_."

The Doctor didn't move. "Just another way for human beings to live, I suppose. Hunter-gatherer societies, communes, consumer capitalism, giant towers on planets without atmospheres… over the lifetime of your species, you run the gamut."

Sophie smiled. "So we last? I mean, humans. If you _are_ a time traveller, you know what happens to us, right? All these worries about global warming or swine flu or whatever… we last?"

The Doctor offered her a small smile. "There are serious problems confronting the human race in your time, Sophie. Those problems aren't solved over night, and they don't go away. But yes. You survive. You spread out among the stars."

"I won't lie to you, Doctor," Sophie said. "It's nice to hear someone say that. That, I don't know, that my _species_ will survive, as bizarre as that sounds."

The Doctor's expression clouded. "Yes. I suppose it must be."

"Are you okay?" she asked.

He shook his head, and grinned. "It's fine. Any more questions?"

"Those things," Sophie said, "the cleaning bots, you called them? What do they do, I mean, besides cleaning up after temporally displaced Australian girls?"

"Ah, well," the Doctor said, "the other half of New Tokyo's dark side. There are thousands of robots in each one of those towers. They clean, repair, take care of whatever the humans that live here don't feel like taking care of themselves. You see those blue lights in the corners of the room?"

Sophie followed his pointing finger to the closest of the lights. "Yeah?"

"Electronic eyes," the Doctor said. "There'll be one in every corner of every room, in all the hallways, all the maintenance access ways."

"Creepy," Sophie muttered.

"Oh, very," the Doctor agreed, though he nodded a little to enthusiastically. Once again brandishing his sonic screwdriver, he nodded to a corner of the room. "Come over here."

They went over to that corner, directly beneath one of the electronic eyes, and, kneeling, he used the screwdriver to detach a section of the wooden panelling. Handing the panel to Sophie, he grinned even more broadly than he had before.

"Ah, would you look at this!" he said, cheerfully. "Just beautiful!"

"What is it?" Sophie said, kneeling beside him. There was small metallic alcove in the wall, which would have been perfectly concealed by the panel the Doctor had removed. Inside was something that looked, to Sophie, like strands of incredibly thin fibre optic cabling, which glowed with the same blue colour as the electronic eyes. Something about it seemed living, though; perhaps the way it pulsed, perhaps the consistency of the cabling itself, which more strongly resembled wet spaghetti or liquorice.

"That, Sophie Freeman, is bioneural circuitry."

"Bio-_what_?"

"Each of those electronic eyes feeds a constant stream of data to a central computer core, which is then interpreted and acted upon by an artificial intelligence unit," the Doctor explained.

"An A.I.? Like a robot?"

"An A.I.," the Doctor agreed, "but certainly not a robot. No, to run a system as complex as this tower, the A.I. would have to be pretty much sentient."

"A thinking building?" Sophie asked, starting to understand.

"More than that," the Doctor corrected. "A _living_ building. This circuitry is organic. It relays data more efficiently than traditional computer systems, allows for creative problem solving, learning, intelligence, even. I was wrong, before, when I said that the information is sent along circuits to a computer core. What I should have said was that the data is sent along nerves to a central nervous system."

Sophie blinked. "Wow."

"Wow is right," the Doctor said as he stood, taking one last look around the conference room. "So, should we get back in the TARDIS and head back to Earth? Try our luck at actually getting to Tokyo?"

Sophie shook her head. "No way. I want to look around."

"Fantastic," the Doctor said, offering her his arm. "Let's look around then, Sophie Freeman."

She took his arm, and together they made their way towards the door to the conference room. As they reached the door, however, it opened, and three people stepped into the room. Leading them was a short Asian woman in a smart ash-coloured business suit, and behind her were a pair of beefy, broad men, carrying half-metre long batons. The ends of those batons sparked threateningly.

Sophie gasped, and stepped back, inadvertently pressing herself to the Doctor's side.

"Ah, hello there!" the Doctor said, offering a warm smile. "I'm the Doctor, and this is Sophie."

"I'm Shion Yoshioka," the woman answered, her tone uninviting. "You're trespassers. I'm here to arrest you."

"Trespassers?" Sophie exclaimed.

"Ah, yes," the Doctor nodded. "About that…"

The woman, Shion, was having none of it. Turning to her men, she said "Get them to security, double time."


	14. The Deadly Tower: 3

**'The Deadly Tower'**

_3. Shion_

* * *

><p>"Great," Sophie said as she and the Doctor were frogmarched down a corridor that wouldn't have looked out of place in any office building she'd ever seen, either on television or in real life, by the dark-uniformed goons. "My first alien planet, and I'm under arrest."<p>

"It happens a lot," the Doctor told her. "I'd get used to it, if I were you."

"No talking," one of the guards barked.

Sophie noticed that the name stitched into his uniform read "Saito". His compatriot, equally beefy but much more sullen-looking was named Hoshi. The woman, Shion, had bid them farewell at the conference room in which they'd landed, if glaring at them as they'd been led away could be considered a farewell.

The corridor was carpeted, lit by what looked like fluorescent tubes mounted on the ceiling, and every now and then the wood-panelled was broken by an office door, the nameplates of which Sophie never had time to read. There were plants every now and then against the wall, but other than that, the only notable features were the blue electronic eyes staring down at them as they passed.

Finally, they reached an elevator, and one of their guards, Hoshi, announced that they wanted to go to security.

With a brief sensation of being under pressure as the lift car accelerated, they were off, and it took only a few seconds for them to arrive at their destination. The car halted, and slowed, and then the Doctor and Sophie were escorted from it, into a large, dark room, lit primarily by the glow of computer monitors. Images from the electronic eyes were projected onto the walls, occasionally cycling through different angles.

"Where are we?" Sophie asked.

"My guess?" the Doctor answered, "The police station."

"No talking!" Saito reminded them.

There were several other men and women dressed like Saito and Hoshi at the terminals, though none of them even bothered to look up at either Sophie or the Doctor. Hoshi was talking to someone, a small, balding man, who glanced at the guards' prisoners.

"Process them," the man said simply.

"This way," Saito said, grabbing Sophie roughly and moving her to a door off to the side.

"Get off me!" she growled, but the Doctor killed further protests with a sharp glare.

"Look, miss, you've been found snooping around in restricted areas," Saito said, as threateningly as he can manage. "You're in trouble, and the only thing you can do right now to lessen that trouble is doing exactly as you're told."

The Doctor nodded in support of this statement, as Hoshi guided him after Sophie and Saito.

The door led to a smaller room, floor, ceiling and walls cold metal. The only furnishing was a bare metal table, and the only light source a naked glow panel inset in the ceiling. There was another door, on the wall perpendicular to the door through which they'd entered, and one glowing electronic eye watching them.

"Empty your pockets," Saito ordered, and when Sophie hesitated the Doctor nudged her.

"Do it," he said, and he offered her a small grin. "We'll be fine."

Sophie patted down her pockets, but she realised that she'd left everything in her bag, which was still in her room on the TARDIS. The Doctor, meanwhile, was turning out every pocket in his coat, and there seemed to be a lot of them. A small pile was rapidly growing on the table.

"Mints, dog biscuits, half a spool of copper wire," the Doctor was saying, listing every item he pulled from his coat, one by one. "Sonic screwdriver, psychic paper, mobile phone."

Sophie, herself captivated by this display, was hustled out of the room by Saito, and left alone in a stark white chamber. There wasn't even a glowing blue electronic eye, and when the door shut behind her it seemed to disappear into the wall, leaving nothing but stark, sterile expanses of white.

Then, like the flash of a camera, light overwhelmed her senses for a split second.

"Damn it!" she said, blinking away the purple blotches that now filled her vision, as she felt one of their guards drag her back out of the room. "What the hell was that?"

"Biological scanner," the guard, whom she could now see was Saito, told her. He was looking at a data tablet. "She's clean. No microorganisms we couldn't identify, no bacteria the building can't handle."

"Well, gee, thanks," she said, as Saito read this information to Hoshi.

"He's next," Hoshi said, nodding towards the Doctor. Saito grabbed him, now denuded of all the stuff that had been crammed into the pockets of his coat, and hustled him into the scanner. As the door shut behind the Doctor, Sophie suddenly felt incredibly vulnerable; she realised that without him, she was very much alone on an alien world, surrounded by hostile people, with no way to get home. A few seconds later, Saito announced that he had the data from the Doctor's scan.

"Wow," he muttered, under his breath, as he opened the door and pulled the Doctor out. "You have a lot of explaining to do, mister."

"What?" Sophie piped up. "Why?"

The Doctor looked at her somewhat sheepishly. "Ah, well, you see…"

"He's an alien," Saito interjected.

Sophie felt like the ground had fallen away beneath her feet. An alien? But he looked so human; two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears. The news shocked her, though on an intellectual level she knew it shouldn't; a time machine that looked like a blue box, was bigger on the inside, and was apparently incredibly temperamental… his being an alien wasn't that much of a stretch. Still, she hadn't been expecting it.

"An alien?" Hoshi repeated, his tone echoing Sophie's own disbelief. "He looks human."

"Are you all right?" the Doctor asked Sophie, ignoring the two men.

"I…" she began, shaking her head. "I don't know. You're an alien?"

He nodded.

"We've got to get them to the boss," Saito said, before Sophie could ask any more questions. Hoshi nodded, and moved towards the door.

The Doctor resolutely refused to move, instead putting his hands on Sophie's shoulders. She found herself unable to even look him in the eye; after everything he'd told her, everything they'd been through, how could he have left that vital piece of information out?

"I'll explain everything, I promise," he said, and when she didn't respond he nudged her chin with his hand. "Sophie. I promise."

She nodded.

"Touching," Saito said, sarcasm dripping from each syllable.

Sophie shot the man a glare. "Bugger off."

The Doctor couldn't help laughing, and released Sophie as he stepped over to the table where he'd deposited all of the stuff he'd had in his coat. "We'll be with you in a minute," he said, as he quickly put his possessions away.

"Um, excuse me," Hoshi said, as Sophie joined the Doctor. "You two don't seem to understand how much trouble you're in."

"Oh, no," the Doctor said, quite jovially. "We know exactly how much trouble we're in, don't we Sophie?"

Despite the shock of learning that the Doctor wasn't, in fact, human, Sophie was surprised by how easily she fell in beside him, how easy it was for him to bring a smile to her lips. Chronovorious leeches and living skyscrapers aside, she truly liked the Doctor, and she had no doubt he would, eventually, explain everything to her.

"Yes," she said, even though she knew that she was far out of her depth. "Yes, we do."

* * *

><p>The last two weeks had been two of the worst weeks of Shion Yoshioka's life. She'd been born in the hospital on level three hundred of Tower 402. She'd gone to school on level two nineteen. She'd joined the Security Division, and, without or even despite the influence of her mother, she'd risen through the ranks to the head the division.<p>

Her usual work was nothing too intense; occasional thefts, children who wandered onto the lower levels, occasional acts of trespass and vandalism, some assaults, once even a murder. But there'd been nothing like this.

"There's no sign of the missing workers," her assistant Chihiro said.

Shion stood in her office, not far from the security centre. A wide, faux-wooden desk dominated the room, facing a pair of high-backed leather chairs for her guests. A large ceramic Buddha dominated the wall facing the desk, behind which was a floor-to-ceiling window offering an unimpeded view of New Tokyo. Despite the preponderance among her fellow colonists for rice paper panelled walls, she kept her walls plain, the Buddha the only sign of decoration in the otherwise Spartan chamber.

Shaking her head, she took her seat behind her desk. Chihiro was a petite young woman, a fellow lifelong denizen of Tower 402, whose mother and father had both been agricultural specialists. Chihiro herself was a recent graduate, here position as Shion's assistant her first job out of school.

"Twelve people," Shion said through clenched teeth. "Twelve!"

Chihiro bowed her head.

"It's unacceptable," Shion continued. "Do we have any idea where they're going? Or why the computers are failing to register the disappearances?"

Chihiro shook her head. "Chief Nakamura has had no success parsing the software coding." The communicator bracelet on Chihiro's wrist buzzed, interrupting her. Apologising to Shion, she answered the call. A second later, she turned back to her boss. "Officers Saito and Hoshi have finished processing the intruders, ma'am."

Shion sighed. "Bring them in."

Chihiro headed for the door to the office, giving Shion a moment to compose herself. She prided herself on being tough, no-nonsense, but these last two weeks, the twelve missing people, had started to truly wear her down. She glanced into the corner of her office, up to the roof; the glowing blue electronic eye watched her, as it watched every inhabitant of the Tower, every moment of every day. The AI kept track of every person's vital signs, warned the Medical Division if someone, say, went into anaphylactic shock or cardiac arrest… and yet, somehow, one dozen people had simply vanished.

She was brought out of her reverie when Chihiro returned, followed by an extraordinarily tall man wearing a long dark coat, and a much shorter, far more willowy woman. These two were flanked by the familiar figures of Saito and Hoshi, two of her less experienced officers.

It was rare that intruders were hauled into her office for interrogation, but the obviously Caucasian nature of their features made these particular intruders priority one. It was a simple fact that the vast majority of New Tokyo's inhabitants were of east Asian descent; these two were more than likely off-worlders, and given the disappearances, Shion couldn't let anything so suspicious proceed outside of her direct supervision.

"You're dismissed, gentlemen," she said to Hoshi and Saito.

The two officers looked reluctant to leave Chihiro and Shion alone with the intruders, but Shion reached into her desk drawer, and withdrew a compact hold-out blaster, which she placed on the desk before her.

The tall man's eyes narrowed as soon as he saw the weapon, and the woman drew in a quick breath. Shion barely suppressed a smile. She liked it when she managed to properly pull off her opening gambits in interrogations. "I can handle anything our intruders can throw at me," she assured them.

"Yes, ma'am," Hoshi nodded, and he and Saito slipped from the office.

Shion waved the Doctor and Sophie over to her desk. "Sit down, please," she said, offering them a bland smile.

"I'd rather stand," the man answered.

Shion frowned. "This will be a long conversation, sir. It will be much more comfortable for you if you sit down."

The man reached into his coat. Shion's muscles tensed, and she shifted her hand towards the pistol on her desk. Finally, he withdrew something, and tossed it over to Shion.

"Actually, Ms. Yoshioka," he said, and she noticed a slight smirk turning up the corners of his lips, "I think you'll find that our presence in this facility is perfectly authorised, our unannounced arrival part of a scheduled test of your security response and all your questions easily answered."

As Shion picked up the item, what looked to Sophie like a small, battered leather wallet, she leaned over to the Doctor. "What's that?" she whispered.

"Psychic paper," the Doctor answered. At Sophie's confused expression, he waved her off. "I'll explain later."

Sophie rolled her eyes, as Shion finished examining the paper. "You're from Earth Command?"

Chihiro sucked in a shocked breath.

The Doctor smiled. "Indeed we are. As I told you before we were so rudely, um, arrested, I'm the Doctor, and this is Sophie."

"You're a Senior Investigator," Shion said, ignoring the repeated introduction.

Sophie cocked an eyebrow at the Doctor as he said "Yes, I suppose we are."

Shion's apparently passive facial expression was betrayed by the sudden widening of her eyes. "What have you heard?"

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Everything's under control here," Shion said, standing. "We thank Earth Command for its interest in Tower 402 and the colony of New Tokyo in general, but everything here is fine."

"Well, that's a lie," Sophie said, before she could stop herself. She had always been a pretty good judge of character, and she'd had enough experience dealing with Centrelink employees and university administrators to pick a standard bureaucratic lie.

Shion's attention shifted to the willowy woman. "Excuse me?"

"What my associate means to say," the Doctor said quickly, "is that our remit allows us to examine security and administrative protocols somewhat more closely than we have thus far."

Shion sighed. "We've had trouble with our AI systems. That's all."

"What kind of trouble?" the Doctor pressed.

"We've been losing rack of some of our inhabitants, the subsystems have suffered some power fluctuations, a few elevator troubles," Shion said, though Sophie detected the woman's unease, and she was the sure the Doctor had, too. "The latest software updates have caused a few bugs, but I'm afraid Earth Command is wasting its time sending you out here."

"But ma'am," Chihiro spoke up, only to be silenced by a withering glare from her boss.

"Everything's fine," Shion insisted.

"I'd like to hear what she has to say, if you don't mind," the Doctor said, and turned to the younger woman. "Go on."

Chihiro looked from Shion to the Doctor and back again. Finally, she choked out "We haven't just lost track of the inhabitants. They've disappeared."

The Doctor's eyebrow rose. "Disappeared?"

Chihiro shook her head, apparently refusing to continue. Sophie and the Doctor looked at Shion, who was glaring daggers at the poor girl.

"Ms. Yoshioka!" the Doctor chided. "I presume I don't need to remind you that Earth Command protocols require all colonial staff to tell investigators everything they know; any attempt to withhold information is considered to be perjury."

Shion shook her head. "Fine. My apologies. I'm sure you'll understand, Doctor, when I tell you that my family have lived in and served Tower 402 for three generations now. My own mother is the Administrator, my father, before his death, was chief of the Medical Division. My people are more than capable of handling the problems we are currently facing."

"Apparently not," Sophie said, under her breath.

Luckily, Shion didn't hear her, and she continued. "Twelve employees, ten from the Maintenance Division and two of my own Security Division personnel, have gone missing over the past two weeks."

The Doctor's eyes widened. "_Twelve_ people?"

"More than sixty thousand people live in this tower, Doctor," Shion said, glaring at him. "There is absolutely no evidence that these people have been killed, or even harmed. They are simply not showing up in the AI's systems."

"But the AI should be keeping track of every single inhabitant," the Doctor countered.

"Yes," Shion agreed, "it should. But the AI has been experiencing troubles ever since we got the latest software upgrades, as I just explained. Upgrades, which by the way were not only approved by Earth Command, but _mandated_ for every _Lifetime_-class Habitation Tower in the galaxy."

"Yes, yes," the Doctor said, waving away her argument, "that's not the point. The _point_ is that twelve people have gone missing, in a tower that run by an artificial intelligence literally designed to never allow a single inhabitant to disappear."

Shion glared once more at Chihiro.

"Don't blame her!" the Doctor snapped. "She did the right thing. You were the one giving me the run around. Now, look. I can _help you_. Just let me."

Shion stepped out from behind her desk, and made her way over to the Doctor. Though she was much shorter than him, her presence was just as, if not more, intimidating than his; pressing her face close to his, she growled "Now you listen to me. My family was one of the first to settle on New Tokyo. This tower, every single person who lives here… they're important to me. They _matter_ to me. I do not need Earth Command poking around, disrupting their lives. You people have shut down five colonies this year _alone_."

The Doctor sighed, his stern countenance fading. "I'm not going to shut down your colony. I just want to help you find those people."

Shion blinked. "Why?"

"I'm the Doctor," she said simply, and Sophie felt something in the pit of her stomach. "It's what I do."

Shion was about to say something, when once again Chihiro's wrist communicator buzzed. "What is it?" Shion barked at her, still not entirely over the young woman's inability to contain herself.

"Sorry, ma'am," Chihiro said, still sounding chastised. "Another person has just gone missing from the AI's scanners. It's Chief Nakamura, sir, down on level eighty-seven. He was in hydroponics bay twelve."

Shion's head snapped up, and immediately she flew into action. She turned to Chihiro, and said "Have Hoshi and Saito meet me on level eighty-seven as soon as possible. Shut down the entire level, and have everyone on that deck stand by for a debrief."

With that, she headed for her office door, apparently having forgotten Sophie and the Doctor. He was not, however, about to stand for that. "I'm coming with you," he announced, scooping his psychic paper from Shion's desk and going to join her.

"Excuse me?" she growled, unimpressed.

"I can help, Shion," the Doctor said, using her first name to get the point across. "Please, please, let me."

Seconds passed, before Shion broke down. "Fine. You can come. _Just_ you."

"Polite," Sophie said, sarcastically. "And what am I supposed to do?"

The Doctor turned to her, shrugging apologetically. "Just hold on, Sophie. As soon as I see what's going on down there, I'll explain everything."

"Give her the nickel tour," Shion ordered Chihiro. "She may as well complete the rest of the inspection." She reached for the Doctor, grabbing the sleeve of his coat. "Now come on!"

The Doctor and Shion departed the woman's office, leaving Sophie and Chihiro alone. Chihiro offered Shion a shy smile. "I'm sorry about my outburst before," she said.

Sophie couldn't help but smile, the anxiety and confusion of her time on New Tokyo thus far vanishing, even if she'd been abandoned by the Doctor for the time being. "It's… it's fine. If it helps, I'm very new to all this."

Chihiro grinned. "It does help, actually. Now, come on. We'll start with lunch."


	15. The Deadly Tower: 4

**'The Deadly Tower'**

_4. Investigation_

* * *

><p>"I have never trusted this kind of AI," the Doctor said, as he and Shion walked down a corridor on level eighty-nine.<p>

"Do not tell me you're one of those Traditionalists," Shion said, shaking her head. "I thought all of those fools were driven out of Earth Command."

"I am certainly not a Traditionalist," the Doctor said. "Nor am I a Neo-Luddite or a New Essentialist. What I am, however, is wary of allowing technology to take over too much of any one person's life. I am afraid that that may have happened here in New Tokyo."

"Your job is to see how we're running the colony," Shion snapped. "Not judge us for the way we choose to live our lives."

"Did those twelve people choose to go missing?" the Doctor retorted.

"Perhaps they did, Doctor," Shion said. "Who am I to know? And, for that matter, who are you? I will investigate the disappearances until I know what happened to those that disappeared with absolute certainty, but I will not cast aspersions on the character or lifestyle of any of those who have disappeared."

"In my experience, AI has a tendency to be a bit of a crap shoot," the Doctor said. "I don't advocate removing them, just downgrading them. Allowing more of the control to revert to human operators."

Shion rolled her eyes. "At great cost, both economically and in terms of man hours."

"When AI malfunctions," the Doctor said, "it tends to cost a lot more than that."

"So you'd prefer we were without robots at all, then? No loading bots, no manufacturing bots? Surgery robots save millions of lives every year; they never make mistakes, their hands never tense up," Shion argued.

"Yes, but in every case, there's a human surgeon nearby to step in at a moment's notice," the Doctor said. "I never said that I didn't want robots to be in operation. I quite like robots, as it happens, especially, you know, if they look like dogs. I have a problem, however, with entire generations of human beings placing their lives in the hands, so to speak, of an artificial intelligence."

Shion shook her head. "They have been perfectly safe. For a hundred years, New Tokyo has thrived. With the AI dealing with the menial tasks, our citizens have had their minds freed to pursue nobler pursuits. Art, philosophy, mathematics, economics…"

"And yet you arrest petty criminals," the Doctor said, not unkindly.

"There are still dirty jobs that require a human touch," Shion replied. "I would not place the life of a criminal, or a suspected criminal, in the hands of a machine; compassion is necessary."

"AI is capable of compassion."

"It's capable of emulating compassion," Shion corrected.

The Doctor paused. "I underestimated you, Shion Yoshioka. I apologise for that."

"We'll see," she said, apparently unimpressed, as they continued down the corridor.

"Yes, I suppose we will," the Doctor agreed.

This section of the skyscraper, Shion had explained as the elevator car had plummeted downwards towards it, was given over almost entirely to food production; floor eighty-nine, like every floor from eighty-one through to floor one hundred was dominated by hydroponics bays, were massive quantities of food were grown year-round in specially maintained facilities. As such, the corridors were far more utilitarian than were those on the floor where Sophie and the Doctor had first arrived, lacking carpeting or decoration, though still featuring the omnipresent glowing blue electronic eyes.

The Doctor's hair stood on end, knowing that the AI was tracking every move he and Shion made, and though he knew Sophie would no doubt be safe with Shion's assistant on the upper floors of the tower, he couldn't help but be worried about her.

It was, after all, his fault that she was here in the first place; though the TARDIS occasionally took him to where he actually wanted to go, he'd grown complacent, allowing the sentient time ship to pick and choose when to follow the coordinates he actually programmed into its drives. Now, though, he'd spirited a young woman away from Earth and her own time after promising her a short hop into the past. Considering the trauma that had surrounded their first meeting, he'd been lucky that she hadn't gone catatonic immediately after stepping out of the TARDIS.

That small display of gastrointestinal fireworks aside, he'd come to respect Sophie innately, even after having known her for so short a time; she'd handled the universe literally collapsing around her with aplomb, and had recovered from the shock of being on alien planet, and learning that he himself was an alien, in no time at all.

Quite apart from that, she was funny, and sweet, and caring, full of wonder and awe and a thirst for adventure, for something more from life; to him, that made her an excellent travelling companion. Still, that thought made his hearts flutter uncomfortably. He'd travelled alone for quite some time before meeting Sophie, and not all of his previous companions had met happy fates.

He still felt the pain of losing Sara, Adric, Peri, Donna and River, not to mention all the others, centuries after he'd last seen them. He had a tendency to show up on the worst days of people's lives, and wherever he went, he seemed to leave a body count behind him. Perhaps it was that he'd met Sophie during an encounter that had seen no one killed save for the chronovorious leech that had attacked her that had encouraged him to invite her aboard the TARDIS.

No, he decided; it was her, and the mystery that surrounded her. The TARDIS had reacted uncomfortably to her presence, and even he couldn't ignore it. Somehow, she just felt temporally… well, _wrong_. Yes, her parents had died in a car accident in 1996. He'd experienced Sophie's very memory of the event along with her during their encounter with the leech.

Still, the TARDIS' records indicated that she _should_ have died alongside them, in a fiery car wreck on a street in Tamworth, New South Wales. She shouldn't be alive, and yet she was. He had no idea how that was possible, though he had theories, and he was resolved to get to the bottom of it all.

At long last, he and Shion arrived at the last registered position of Chief Nakamura, one of the senior most workers in Tower 402. Saito and Hoshi were already there, wicked looking stun batons in hand. When they saw the Doctor with their boss, they started.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Saito blurted.

"He's Earth Command," Sophie said, waving off his exclamation. "Care to tell me what's happened here?"

"We have no idea, ma'am," Hoshi said, recovering from the Doctor's presence faster than Saito, who continued to gape at him. "Nakamura was registered by the AI working in hydroponics bay twelve, just in here."

The four of them were standing outside of a sealed glass double doorway, allowing an unimpeded view of what looked, from this view, to be a verdant paradise of trees laden with unripened fruit.

"Then he stepped out, and we lost him," Hoshi finished.

"Strange," the Doctor said.

"I'll say," Saito grunted.

Shion shook her head. "Have you checked the door servos yet? Is there any sign of tampering?"

"Yes, ma'am," Hoshi nodded. "According to the servo computers, the only person to enter the bay today was Nakamura. He was also the only person to leave."

The Doctor frowned. "Do you have access to security footage of this area?"

"Of course," Shion said, dismissively.

"Well, why don't you check it?" the Doctor pressed.

"Because if there was something wrong with it," Saito countered, "the AI would have signalled us immediately."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. You know the AI has been acting up lately. What reason do you have to believe that it functioned correctly this time around?"

"Because whenever there's been a problem with the systems," Shion said, "the redundancies have alerted Maintenance Division immediately."

"What about when the people went missing? Did the redundancies alert Maintenance Division _then_?" the Doctor asked.

Shion blanched. "No. They didn't."

"Check the footage," the Doctor said, jerking his head towards a console embedded in the wall beside the door to the hydroponics bay. He knew enough about the technology of this building to know that an individual with Shion's clearance level could access whatever information she desired from any terminal in the structure.

Shion mumbled something, but headed over to the console anyway. She tapped the controls a few times, and the Doctor joined her. "Here," she said, and gestured to the electronic eye glowing behind her. "This is the feed from that eye when the door opened to allow Nakaura to leave the hydroponics bay."

"What was he doing down here, anyway?" the Doctor asked. "I would think an area like this would be almost entirely inhabited by bots."

"It is normally," Shion admitted, "but we've having troubles with a few. Nakamura would have been down here repairing a broken unit."

"Just like Miho and Tanaka were," Saito said, quietly enough for the Doctor to realise he wasn't meant to have heard it.

"What was that?" the Doctor asked.

"Miho and Tanaka," Shion said, her expression darkening. "The first two Maintenance Section workers to go missing. They were last seen down in the maintenance tunnels on level twenty."

"Close to the surface," the Doctor mused.

Finally, the view from the electronic eye cycled past the moment that Nakamura was meant to have left the hydroponics bay. It remained resolutely closed.

"Someone must have tampered with the servos," Shion said. "They record the exact time any door in this building opens or closes, and they keep track of anything that passes through that door. Human, animal, even bacteria. The scanners are incredibly finely attuned."

"And yet these ones, apparently, recorded an exit that we've just seen didn't happen."

"Are you certain those servos weren't tampered with?" Shion asked Saito and Hoshi.

"Yes, ma'am," the replied in unison.

"Which leaves three possible explanations," the Doctor said. "Either Saito and Hoshi here are lying, and the servos were tampered with, perhaps even by them, or the servos themselves are lying, and have registered false information without having been tampered with, which would indicate a malfunction, or the footage you and I were just watching, Ms. Yoshioka, is lying, and Nakamura did leave this room."

Saito and Hoshi looked offended at the Doctor's implication, and Sophie stepped forward to defend two loyal men. "Doctor, I'll thank you not to imply duplicity on the part of two decorated officers of Security Section."

"Oh, no offence meant," the Doctor promised.

"Regardless of what was meant," Shion said, "offence was taken."

The Doctor sighed. "I'm sorry about that. I'm just laying out all the possibilities. For the record, I'm almost certain that Saito and Hoshi wouldn't have had time to tamper with the servos even if they were so inclined."

"Why, thank you," Saito muttered.

"Look, I'm not trying to get on anyone's bad side, here," the Doctor said, "I'm just trying to find out what happened to Nakamura. Now, if he didn't leave the hydroponics bay, and let's just assume that he didn't, we need to find out what happened in there."

When there was no objection, he went on.

"Shion," he began, before correcting himself, "Ms. Yoshioka. Ms. Yoshioka, can you call up the footage from inside the hydroponics bay?"

Shion sighed, and tapped a few more controls on the console. There was no response from the panel. She frowned. "That's odd."

"What's odd?"

"It says that that data has been corrupted," she said, voice laden with disbelief. "That shouldn't be possible. It's straight up visual data. There are layers and layers of redundancy."

"Another software glitch?" Saito asked.

"When are you boys at Earth Command going to send us the patch for all these glitches?" Hoshi added.

"Soon, soon," the Doctor said, ignoring them. "I think we need to go inside, and investigate the scene firsthand."

Shion tapped another control on the panel, and the door to the hydroponics bay slid open. Immediately, the four of them were assaulted by a rush of warm, wet air. The hydroponics bays were constantly kept at a temperature and humidity level that best promoted the growth of the plants inside. Judging by the warmth of the air that had just washed over them, this bay was given over to tropical fruits, perhaps even monsoon crops.

The Doctor led the way, followed by Shion and, finally, Saito and Hoshi. The electronic eyes watched them closely.

* * *

><p>"Where would you like to begin the inspection tour?" Chihiro asked Sophie as the two of them made their way down the sumptuously appointed corridor outside Shion's office towards the bank of elevators that serviced the floor. There were few people about, and Sophie guessed it was because the Security Division's areas were restricted to most of the inhabitants.<p>

"Um," Sophie said, biting her lip. "I'm not sure, really."

"Are you really Earth Command?" Chihiro asked, raising an eyebrow. "Look, I'm not going to tell anyone. I don't care who you and the Doctor are, honestly, just as long as you can help find the missing people."

Sophie grinned. "I promise you, Chihiro, the Doctor will be able to help. He's really good at finding missing people, as it turns out."

Chihiro nodded, placated. "So you're not Earth Command?"

"Not really," Sophie admitted. "Look, I'm… I'm not even meant to be here. He said he'd take me on a trip, but we ended up in the wrong place."

Chihiro frowned, confused. "What do you mean?"

"I'm not even sure myself," Sophie said. She shook her head. "I didn't even think about it, really. I just agreed to come with him. To run off with him, I suppose. I didn't even tell anyone I was coming."

"Who is he?" Chihiro asked. "I saw the results of the bioscan. They said that he wasn't human."

Sophie swallowed, unsure how to answer, or even if she should. The Doctor obviously trusted her enough to leave her alone, but what did that trust entail? She'd only just herself found out that he wasn't human; apparently, that paper he'd shown Shion Yoshioka had been enough to convince her of a rather impressive series of lies.

"I don't know," she finally decided to say, and it was close enough to the truth. What she didn't know about the Doctor far outweighed what she did know, after all. She decided, though, that Chihiro deserved more than that. "He's a traveller. That's what he told me. He just… goes places, and sees problems, and fixes them. He asked me to come with him. This is my first trip with him, actually. He promised he'd tell me everything, but I guess he hasn't had time yet. Once he does… once he does, I'll fill you in. Swear it."

Chihiro grinned. "Thank you, I suppose."

Sophie laughed. "No need to thank me. Come on, then, show me around. You were meant to be taking me on a tour, after all."

By now, they'd reached the bank of elevators. One was already waiting for them. Sophie couldn't help but notice the watching electronic eyes. She and Chihiro stepped aboard the elevator car.

"I suppose I'll take you to the main promenade," Chihiro said, and repeated the intended destination the elevator's computers. The AI automatically registered her order, and the car began to descend at an astounding speed. "It's the largest public space in the tower, the centre of cultural life here."

Sophie grinned. "Excellent! I was looking to immerse myself in culture… which reminds me, and I'm sorry to ask this, how'd you learn such exceptional English?"

Chihiro blinked. "Excuse me?"

"English," Sophie repeated. "I mean, you speak the language so well."

Chihiro was taken aback. "I don't speak English. Everyone on New Tokyo speaks Japanese. Our ancestors were transplanted directly from Japan. You're speaking Japanese now."

"What?" Sophie exclaimed. She shook her head, resolving to add that to the ever-expanding list of questions she had for the Doctor, especially given the look of concern on Chihiro's face. Grinning, Sophie decided to laugh her confusion off. "Forgive my sense of humour. I guess Australian funnies don't translate too well."

Chihiro offered a polite laugh, but that did little to alleviate Sophie's embarrassment as the elevator car came to a stop. The door opened, and Sophie stepped out… into a tableau that wouldn't have seemed out of place in the Tokyo of her time. The enormous chamber was six or seven stories high, their elevator having come to a stop on a tier about three stories off the floor.

Business and people crammed the lower level, glowing signs in Kanji characters hanging from the walls and the ceiling. Her senses were assaulted with smells and sounds; she could have sworn she heard bad karaoke over the roar of the crowd that thronged the promenades.

"Wow," she said, under her breath.

"Are you hungry?" Chihiro asked her. "It's almost lunch time, and I'm starving. Come on, I'll show you my favourite sushi in the entire tower."

Sophie nodded, and followed Chihiro into the crush of people.

* * *

><p>The hydroponics bay was organised into row upon row of fruit trees; everything was green and heavy, and even the air seemed to lie thick upon them all like a blanket. Bright, powerful lights shined down upon them, as hot and warm as sunlight, and it seemed like a fresh tropical storm had just swept through the chamber.<p>

"Nakamura!" Shion shouted into the chamber. The Doctor heard it echo through the chamber, but there was no response.

"Feel that humidity," the Doctor muttered.

"Too much for you to handle?" Saito said with a smirk.

The Doctor lifted his eyebrow. Despite the heavy coat he wore, the temperature had little effect on him, though the humidity was certainly somewhat overwhelming. "I'm fine, actually," the Doctor insisted. "I'm surprised the three of you can handle it, though, with most of your life being spent in the climate controlled environs of the tower."

"I love humidity like this," Hoshi said, as though bragging. "What about you, Saito?"

"Oh, definitely. Not if I was wearing a coat like that, though."

The Doctor could tell they were teasing him, and though it didn't bother him at all, he was glad when Shion interrupted. "Cut the chatter, you two. We're here because Gen Nakamura is missing, not so the two of you can play with a new chew toy. Saito, you're with me. We're going to take this half of the bay. Hoshi, you go with the Doctor. You'll search the other half."

Saito and Hoshi looked none too happy with this arrangement, but both followed orders without argument. As Shion and Saito departed to investigate the hydroponics bay, Hoshi and the Doctor sized one another up.

"So," the Doctor said. "Should we get to work?"

Hoshi sucked in a breath through his nose, looking not unlike a rather annoyed bull in the process. "I don't care how highly you rank with Earth Command. This is our tower. Our people have gone missing. You do what Ms. Yoshioka says, or you'll answer to me and Saito."

The Doctor sighed. He knew Hoshi wasn't a bad man; he was just protective of his home, and loyal to his commander, but his distrust of the Doctor was entirely misplaced. "Look, I understand. I am honestly just here to help. Now, come on, let's get to work."

Hoshi glared at him, but grudgingly extended his right hand, free of his stun baton. The Doctor took it, gripping tight. "Let's get to work," Hoshi agreed, and together the two of them turned and headed out into the trees.

It was only a few minutes before the Doctor heard Hoshi give a shout. Running through the trees, he found the man a few seconds later, looking at something on the ground and shaking his head. The Doctor joined him, and looked down at the ground… only to see a man's body. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit, stained with blood.

"Is that Nakamura?"

Hoshi nodded mutely.

The Doctor knelt, examining the body. Gen Nakamura had been a stocky, middle-aged man, balding at the pate, with a neat goatee. His chest had been caved lengthwise several times, in a deep, jagged fashion, the uniform burnt away in these places, the flesh charred. There was not much in the way of blood splatter, the wounds having apparently been cauterised immediately. They would have been painful, the Doctor realised, but death would likely have come quickly to the poor man.

He shut his eyes, and counted down. No matter how much death he had seen in his travels, it never became easier, especially when he looked at Saito's face; the young man looked as though he'd never smile again.

"He was your friend," the Doctor surmised, and when Hoshi nodded again he said "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"Who could have done this?" Hoshi said, shaking his head.

"We'll find out, Saito. I promise," the Doctor said. "But first thing's first, we need to figure out how they did it."

"Those wounds look like they were caused by a plasma torch," Hoshi said, and the Doctor was thankful he was being accompanied by a trained investigator, particularly one that was intimately familiar with the environment of the crime scene.

"Are plasma torches easy to come by around here?"

Hoshi shook his head, but before he could go on, Shion and Saito arrived, out of breath and crashing through the foliage. "We heard your shout," Shion said, catching her breath, but she gasped as she saw Nakamura's body. "Oh my God."

"What happened?" Saito demanded.

"We just found him," the Doctor told them.

"Those injuries," Shion said. "They don't look accidental."

"They're not," Hoshi said. "Unless he slashed himself across the chest three times with a plasma torch."

"God damn." Saito hissed. "Who could have done this?"

"That is exactly Hoshi and I were in the process of determining when you arrived," the Doctor said, once again examining the dead man's mortal wounds. "These are vicious, but it seems like he was surprised."

"Why do you say that?" Shion asked, kneeling beside him.

"They're all at the same angle," the Doctor said. "They would have happened quickly, perhaps blindingly fast. By the time he knew what was happening, he'd already be dead."

Hoshi spoke up. "How is that possible? No one would be able to move that quickly."

"I don't think we're looking at a person as a culprit here," the Doctor said.

Shion rolled her eyes. "What are you saying then? That it was the AI that attacked him?"

"No," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "Well, maybe. But who in this tower would have access to a plasma torch?"

"Anyone in the Maintenance Division, or anyone with access to Maintenance Division tools," Saito answered. "And there are torches on the…"

As he trailed off, the Doctor's jaw set, grimly. "On the bots. I saw a pair of smaller maintenance bots upstairs. Antigrav units, laser scrubbers, vacuum nozzles… no plasma torches, but the bots down on these levels would be designed to tend to the trees, deal with problems much larger than a bit of sick on the carpet."

"Fine," Shion said, "the bots are equipped with plasma torches, but there's no way they could harm a human being. It's hardwired into their programming, into every single circuit."

"But the bots are controlled by the AI," the Doctor said, "and if the AI had determined that, for whatever reason, Nakamura was a threat to it… perhaps it overrode that piece of programming."

Shion's expression darkened. "But that's impossible…"

"Unless it's not software bugs that have been plaguing your systems," the Doctor said.

"A virus," Shion said, finishing his thought.

"A virus," the Doctor agreed. "That's been working its way through the bioneural circuitry of this building, changing the code… the DNA of the bioneural circuits."

"Watch out!" Hoshi suddenly called, and the Doctor and Shion looked up just in time to see a pair of maintenance bots emerge from the foliage, just as Saito and Shion had a moment before. The bots hovered towards them, and the Doctor couldn't help but notice the glowing green plasma torches at the end of the bots' outstretched manipulator arms.

* * *

><p>Sophie had lost track of Chihiro in the rush of people; she felt completely anonymous and utterly obvious at the same time. No one seemed to be paying any attention to her, but her skin and hair colour was enough to make her feel completely alien. Sucking in a deep breath, she slipped into a side alley.<p>

Looking back out onto the main thoroughfare, she wondered where Chihiro could have gotten to. She was sure she'd have even lost the Doctor in that crowd. She found herself beside a dumpster, in between a busy restaurant and what seemed to be a teahouse.

It was awesome, amazing, but she was alone, and not a little concerned about how she was going to find the Doctor again. She felt movement behind her. Turning, she spoke into the darkness.

"Hello?"

There was no answer. Despite the harsh, overlapping lights of the street outside, the alleyway was cloaked in impenetrable darkness. Only the glowing blue of an electronic eye pierced the black.

More movement.

"Hello?" Sophie repeated, taking a step down into the alleyway. "Is anyone there?"

A domed machine, at its roundest thirty or thirty five centimetres wide, emerged from the gloom, several manipulator arms hanging from its lower half. There was another whirring noise, now, coming from behind her; she turned, to see another bot drifting towards her.

Sophie swallowed; the Doctor had implied that the bots were harmless, earlier, but there was something intimidating about the way they moved towards her. She saw the tools at the end of the manipulator arms activate, and as they advanced towards her as one, she screamed.


	16. The Deadly Tower: 5

**'The Deadly Tower'**

_5. Attack_

* * *

><p>As the bots began to advance, the Doctor flew into action. In an instant, he had surveyed his position and the surrounding area; he and Shion were both still kneeling beside Gen Nakamura's corpse, Saito and Hoshi behind them. To either side were rows of fruit trees; directly ahead was one of the brilliant sunlamps that bathed the hydroponics bay in plant-nourishing light.<p>

The bots themselves were moving towards them at a rapid clip, antigrav thrusters firing, plasma torches sparking. The Doctor knew that Saito and Hoshi were armed, even though he was unsure how useful their stun batons would be against the hovering bots; by contrast, he and Shion were not. Well, he was, technically, but he wouldn't have time to retrieve his sonic screwdriver from his coat before the bots were upon them, and judging by the damage they'd done to Nakamura, once that happened the fight would be over quickly.

Instead, he decided that discretion, in this case, was most certainly the better part of valour. Shion, Saito and Hoshi may all have been well-trained law enforcement officers, but the Doctor had hundreds of years of experience, and so when he shouted for them to run, he meant it.

The only problem, however, was that the first two bots had now been joined by another pair. They were hemmed in, caught between the treets and the bots, which were gathering speed. He grabbed Shion's hand, deciding that Saito and Hoshi could defend themselves, armed as they were, longer than she could, and he leapt to his feet, damn near dragging her with him.

His feet flew across the decking, Shion struggling to keep up, and he squeezed himself between two trees, feet trailing in the mud in which they were rooted. Tumbling out the other side, he saw Hoshi struggle through after them, followed by Saito.

With only seconds until the bots caught up with them, he began to rifle through his pockets, trying to remember where he'd put his sonic screwdriver.

"Do you have any weapons?" Shion was asking him.

"You scanned me," the Doctor howled, "you know I don't!"

The whining of the bots' antigrav thrusters increased in pitch and intensity as they rocketed upwards on the other side of the tree line, intending to descend upon them.

"What about your batons?" the Doctor demanded of Hoshi and Saito.

"They don't work on the bots!" Hoshi said.

"Oh, of course they don't," the Doctor muttered to himself, as he finally pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket.

"We've never had to fight bots before!" Saito complained, but he readied his baton anyway; the bots were now clearing the upper branches of the trees, and were rapidly descending.

The Doctor activated the screwdriver. He cycled quickly through the settings, desperate to find the one that would disrupt the bots' control circuits.

"Run," Hoshi said, his voice hoarse, his jaw set. "I'll hold them off."

"Hoshi, no!" Shion said, grabbing his shoulder.

He brushed them away, and activated his baton as the first bot reached them; he jammed it upwards towards the manipulator arms. The baton sparked, but the bot was unperturbed.

"Go!" he cried, and as Saito grabbed Shion's shoulder to pull her away, the Doctor turned his screwdriver on the advancing bot.

The bot suddenly halted, one of its drives sparking. Its plasma torch was just centimetres from Hoshi. The Doctor grabbed the man, and pulled him towards the exit. Together, the four of them legged it. That bot remained rooted to the spot, unable to move, but its compatriots were not so hindered.

"What did you do?" Shion asked the Doctor as they ran.

"I found the right frequency to shut down the bot's control circuits, but they're on an adaptive system," the Doctor explained, feet pounding the decking. "As soon as it's found a way around my lock-out, it'll be after us."

They were making good progress, but they still had three bots hot on their heels. Shion slipped into the lead, followed by Saito and then the Doctor, with Hoshi bringing up the rear. None of them dared to look back, especially when the droning of the engines grew louder.

The Doctor counted at least six distinct pitches; they were now being followed by half a dozen bots, all of them no doubt intent on eviscerating them all.

"Come on!" Shion urged.

The Doctor saw the door out of the hydroponics bay looming before them, just a few short metres away.

Saito gave a cry as his ankle rolled out from under him. The big man struck the deck, hard, the Doctor barely managing to come to a stop before tripping over him. He leant down to help the man up, and Hoshi stopped to help them. The bots were almost upon them, the whine of their antigravs overwhelmingly loud.

Shion was at the door, working the console to get it open; apparently, the systems were fighting back.

"Got it!" she declared triumphantly as the door opened, and she slipped out into the corridor, watching the Doctor, Saito and Hoshi move as one towards the exit. Her face fell when she saw the mass of bots behind them, laser cutters and plasma torches alight. "Come on! Run!"

The three men reached the door, the Doctor helping Saito through. Hoshi was just about to join them when the lead bot caught up to him.

The strike was lightning-quick.

The bot swept its plasma torch across Hoshi's back. The man gave a quiet scream of shock, before falling forward. Time seemed to slow.

The Doctor threw Saito onto Shion, knocking her down and both of them clear into the corridor, well away from the door. Hoshi was falling, his expression startled. The Doctor caught him in his arms, and pulled the big man back through the door.

Lifting his arm, wedged beneath Hoshi's shoulder, he triggered his sonic screwdriver, pointing it at the hydroponics bay's exit. The screwdriver sent a feedback surge through the conduits powering the door's servos, and with a shriek they exploded in sparks. The doors, driven shut by the explosion, slammed together like the blade of a guillotine against the neck of a victim.

The lead bot was caught in the doorway, and in the second the doors shut was eviscerated soundly by their crushing advances. It fell, split into two pieces, sparking fitfully.

The Doctor sucked in a breath, watching the bots' compatriots through the clear sections of the door. They seemed to examine the four of them, the Doctor, Shion, Saito and the badly wounded Hoshi for a few moments, before hovering swiftly away.

"Doctor," he heard Hoshi whisper.

Looking down, he saw that the colour had gone from the man's face, and that his consciousness was fading fast.

"Hoshi!" Saito roared, nudging aside Shion with little care, dashing to his fallen friend's side.

The Doctor turned Hoshi over, and examined the wound. A dark, burnt furrow had appeared in his back, his uniform and the skin beneath it singed a shiny, heart-breaking black. It was deep, the Doctor knew, had more than likely severed his spinal column.

Hoshi tried to speak, but blood flecked his lips. His eyes closed.

"He's gone," the Doctor said, true regret tinging his words; he'd known Hoshi only a short time, but he'd known a man of honour.

* * *

><p>With a hovering bot in front of her and another behind, Sophie took the only option she could conceive of in her desperation: she ran to the side. The alleyway was narrow, but she had found herself standing right next to a dumpster when the bots had appeared, one of its lids open.<p>

Maybe it was pure instinct enflamed with adrenalin, but before she knew what she was doing, even as the scream died on her lips, she was vaulting over the rim of the dumpster. It was mostly empty, luckily, but it still stunk.

She had no idea why, in a society as obviously technologically advanced as New Tokyo's, why there was any need at all for a dumpster like this, but she guessed it had something to do with preserving the realism of a city in an environment that would be entirely unnatural for human beings; being confined, almost entirely, to a single building, gargantuan though it was.

Her manoeuvre only bought her a few extra seconds. The bots adjusted course, and she heard their antigrav drives draw closer. Feeling around in the gloom of the dumpster for a weapon, for anything she could use to bring them done, her fingers found purchase around a long, thick metal bar.

Remembering the hockey she'd played in high school, she lifted it. Clamouring to her feet, bar held behind her head, she let loose with a swing. One of the mots banked away in time, but the other wasn't so lucky.

Her blow clipped it, sending it spiralling off momentarily; a minor victory for her, but one that bought a few more precious seconds.

Sophie didn't enjoy fighting, but she wasn't bad at it, either. She was out of practice, and more than a little out of shape, and she found herself thinking of her high school hockey coach's mantra that thin didn't necessarily mean fit. She batted away the second bot as it came at her with something that looked like a bright green welding torch.

She felt the heat from the torch momentarily against her skin as it passed.

The first bot was on her again, but she managed to get more than a glancing blow against it this time. As her weapon smacked against the machine's shell with a resounding clang, she saw it dip ominously.

Not wasting a moment, she swung again at the second bot. This time, it brought up another manipulator arm, and a narrow beam of light lanced forth.

A laser beam, Sophie realised too late. Her weapon was cut in half, rendering it all but useless. She thought desperately for a moment, wondering what she could do, as the bot came about for another pass, its wounded fellow still struggling to remain aloft.

With a cry, she hauled herself back out of the dumpster and pushed off from the rim. She sailed right over the flash of green from the bot's torch, and saw the laser beam sizzle past her left ear. She landed hard, sprawled on the asphalt floor behind the two bots.

Realising that she'd grazed her knees and tasting blood in her mouth, she pushed any thoughts of pain or discomfort out of her mind and she ran.

The bots anticipated her movements, however, quickly zooming above her head to block her exit from the alley.

"Sophie?" she heard a voice say.

The bots immediately zipped away, their antigravs straining to propel them. Slowly, as she fought to regain control of her breathing, Sophie realised that she'd been singularly aware of the little machines. Other perceptions began to return; the rumble of people and the notes music from the thoroughfare, the smell of the cooking, the lights from the multitude of neon signs.

Chihiro was standing at the entrance to the alleyway, a look of concern on her face. "What happened?" she was asking, bustling towards Sophie. "Are you all right?"

"No!" Sophie snapped through heaving breaths. "Two of those flying cleaning robots just tried to kill me!"

"What?" Chihiro said, clearly disbelieving.

Sophie unceremoniously spat the blood from her mouth. Her teeth must have cut the inside of her cheek at some point; she looked down at the torn knees of her jeans, already soaking through with blood. "Then how do you explain this?" she said, proffering her injuries for Chihiro's inspection.

"The bots don't attack people," Chihiro insisted. "It's hardwired into their programming."

"Bullshit," Sophie retorted.

Chihiro looked taken aback by the exclamation, but seemed unsure what to do in response, so Sophie powered on.

Though she'd been paralysed by her own terror and uncertainty several times in her personal, collapsing version of the universe when she'd first met the Doctor, she was more than capable of being a woman of action. She decided, in that moment, that she wasn't going to leave the Doctor alone; she'd find him, help him figure out what was going wrong, and she'd help him solve it.

"We're going to find the Doctor," Sophie insisted, and led the way from the alley.

* * *

><p>Shion was barely holding back the tears as the Doctor gently lowered Hoshi's body to the floor. Saito, meanwhile, just stared at the closed eyes of his friend. In contrast, as soon as the Doctor had been released of the burden of Hoshi's corpse, he flew into action, scooping up the remains of the bisected bot.<p>

He was scanning it with his sonic screwdriver, muttering to himself, when Saito looked up, his expression one of shock and scorn. "What the hell are you doing? Playing with machinery while Hoshi just… just lies there!"

The Doctor's expression not one of sympathy so much as one of pity.

"I'm sorry about your friend," he said, "but those bots have already killed your man Nakamura. Chances are, they've killed the other people that have disappeared. They just tried to kill us. Hoshi sacrificed his life to get us all out of there, to get us away from them, and we owe it to him now to find out why."

Saito looked to Shion for support.

It took a few seconds, but she snapped out of her silence and said "The Doctor's right. If the bots have turned against humans, it means that the AI could have, too. If that's the case, everyone in the tower is in grave danger."

Saito nodded. "I… I'm sorry. You're right."

"Let's get up to Medical Division," Shion said. "You need to get your ankle looked at."

"Excellent idea," the Doctor said, grinning.

"How dare you?" Saito spat.

The Doctor blinked, taken aback. "I'm sorry?"

"You can smile while standing next to the body of a good man?" Saito said, his eyes dark. "What kind of man are you?"

The smile died on the Doctor's lips. "If the AI's gone haywire, we need to find out why. It might still be a fault with the bots' programming, or sabotage, but if it's not, then the most likely explanation I can think of involves some sort of trouble with the organic components of the AI's systems. The Medical Division will have the equipment I need to test them."

"What about Hoshi's body?" Saito pressed.

"We'll come back for it," the Doctor promised.

"We can't just leave him," Saito complained.

"We don't have time to deal with it now," the Doctor said, perhaps too dismissively.

"We'd better hurry," Shion said, cutting off Saito's next argument, as she began making for the elevator. As she moved, a buzz sounded from the pocket of her soiled suit. Reaching in, she pulled out a smaller communicator. "Yoshioka."

"_Ms. Yoshioka, it's Chihiro,_" came the voice of her assistant. "_Ms. Freeman has said that she was attacked by two cleaning bots._"

Shion and the Doctor traded dark looks.

"_I tried to impress upon her the implausibility of such a claim,_" Chihiro was saying, "_but she was quite insistent that she reunite with the Doctor as soon as possible._"

"We're on our way to Medical Division," Shion said. "You and Ms. Freeman are to meet us there immediately."

"_Medical Division, ma'am?_"

"I want you to listen to me very carefully, Chihiro," Shion said. "You are to contact Maintenance Division on your way to Medical. You are to tell them to impose a Level One Shutdown on all bots, all divisions and all floors. Do you understand?"

"_Understood,_" Chihiro replied. The communication ended.

Shion turned back to the Doctor, who looked at her with a cocked eyebrow. "If Sophie comes to any harm…"

Shion felt the weight of his words and nodded. "I don't want what happened to Hoshi to happen to anyone else. Level One Shutdown means that all bots will immediately cease whatever they're doing and deactivate."

"If the bots attacked Sophie and us at the same time," the Doctor said, "that means that they're coordinated."

"The only way they could be coordinated is through the AI," Shion said. "Their processors aren't powerful enough to handle that kind of activity."

The two of them turned to regard the brilliant blue electronic eye that watched them from above. The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and, aiming it at the eye, activated it. With a snap of frying electronics and a small shower of sparks, the eye went dark.

"Now that we're alone," he said, turning back to Shion and Saito, "what's the plan?"

"Once we're in the Medical Division," Shion began, "I'll contact Maintenance. They should have shut down all the bots by that point. All the atmospheric and environmental controls have multiple firewalls around their systems, so the AI won't be able to touch them."

"Good," the Doctor nodded.

"Then I suppose we've got to find out how we can combat whatever's gone wrong with the AI," Shion said, shrugging. "A reboot of the affected systems, if its corrupted software…"

"And if it's a biological virus, as I suspect?"

Saito stepped in at this point. "That means we'd have to disable the AI. Take it offline entirely."

"That's the absolute worst case scenario," Shion said, shaking her head.

"I think Hoshi already lived a worst case scenario," the Doctor argued. "Look, it may become necessary to destroy the AI entirely. If that did become the case, would we be able to do it? Would you?"

"No," Shion said, shaking her head. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. If we shut down the AI, we'll be leaving ourselves helpless."

"And if we don't, we could all end up like Hoshi," Saito muttered.

"Exactly," the Doctor agreed. "How would we do it, Shion?"

"Only one person can," Shion said, and the three of them began to move again for the elevator. "My mother, the Director. She can activate the shut down process from her office on the top floor. It has to be her; the controls are isomorphic, locked to her biological signature."

"And if something happened to her?" the Doctor asked.

"Then power would devolve to the next highest authority," Saito said, as the elevator door opened. The Doctor quickly destroyed the electronic eye in here, too. "A division head."

"Like you," the Doctor said to Shion, who nodded. He still carried the remains of the destroyed bot, which he studied now quite intently. "Then it seems to me that we need to contact your mother as soon as we can."

* * *

><p>"A Level One Shutdown?" Satoshi Mori, head of Tower 402's Maintenance Division, shouted at the top of his booming voice. "Ridiculous!"<p>

"Orders come from the head of Security Division," his assistant, a diminutive lad quite the opposite of Mori's obese form named Shin, said in response. "The Director's daughter herself."

"Shion Yoshioka," Mori said, shaking his head. "Always too much ambition in that one."

Maintenance Division took up a sizeable section of the lower floors of the tower, encompassing the waste reclamation systems, the water and atmosphere recyclers, and the long-disused engines of the Tower, which were now primarily used as back-up power generators. Dominated by a factory that produced required bots at a prodigious rate, and featuring machine shops and programming centres, it was always a hive of activity, which is why it had taken Mori two days to realise that Miho and Tanaka had gone missing.

Tower 402, like every one of the thousands of such towers that dominated New Tokyo's barren, airless surface, had once been a spaceship. Launched from Earth on a one-way trip, the tower had landed on New Tokyo's surface, a readymade city fit to house, feed, educate and employ up to seventy thousand human beings for their entire lives. An absolutely genius feat of colonisation engineering, the towers had since fallen out of favour on Earth, but there were hundreds of thousands of them scattered amongst the stars.

Mori was proud of his work, of his bots, of the AI that watched he and his people ceaselessly through the blue electronic eyes that were omnipresent throughout the tower, and a Level One Shutdown could jeopardise all of that.

"She'd better have a damn good reason for it," Mori said, as he headed towards his control room, his assistant right behind him.

"I only talked to her assistant, but she broadcast all the right codes," Shin said. "She said something about a series of bot attacks."

Had Mori been drinking something, he would have spat it all over Shin. "Bot attacks? How hard has she been hitting the sake? They are literally incapable of attacking people. It's hardwired into their programming! Gen Nakamura spent days going over every line of code after Miho and Tanaka copped off together, and he didn't find any evidence there was something wrong."

They'd reached the entrance to Mori's control room now.

"I know, sir," Shin said, "but this is the order."

"And we'd better follow it," Mori nodded. He looked up at the electronic eye above the door to his control room, and said "Surely they can't think there's anything wrong the AI?"

"I don't know, sir," Shin said, dutifully, as the door opened before them.

Mori's control room was dark, lit only by the banks of computer terminals that lined the walls. "Lights," Mori declared. "Activate!"

The room remained resolutely dark.

"Don't tell me we've got software problems here now," he said, crossing the room to the master terminal. Shin followed him inside, the door closing behind them.

Neither of them noticed the bot hovering silently in the corner of the room, until it activated its plasma torch and laser cutter; by then it was too late for both of them.


	17. The Deadly Tower: 6

**'The Deadly Tower'**

_6. Sterilisation_

* * *

><p>As Shion, the Doctor and the still-limping Saito stepped out of the elevator car onto the main floor of the Medical Division, the Doctor was struck by two things.<p>

First, he was impressed by the size and scope of the medical facility; he knew this ward, already cavernous and surprisingly well-appointed, was just one of four, and that there were several floors of private rooms, operating theatres, laboratories and dental surgeries on either side of it. Everything was sterile, smelling faintly of antiseptic, in soft hues of blue and green.

Second, he noticed that there were still bots hovering about.

These were smaller models than those they'd escaped from downstairs, coloured like the rest of the hospital in soft blue and green tones, with more innocuous looking tools dangling from their manipulator arms.

"What the hell?" Shion said, as shocked as he was to see the bots still active.

"Maybe something went wrong," the Doctor told her as they stepped into the ward, thankfully devoid of patients.

"Or maybe Mori's just being a jerk," Saito said; his voice sounded pained, and it was obvious to the Doctor that the pain in his ankle was starting to catch up to him.

Shion sighed. "The prideful idiot." She stepped over to the side, pulling out her communicator again.

A tall man, rail-thin and wearing eyeglasses and a white lab coat appeared. "How can I help you today?" he asked. Despite his genial phrasing, he had the air of annoyance; a scientist disturbed from his experiments, the Doctor realised. He'd heard that tone in his own voice many times.

"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said, introducing himself, "and this is Saito. He hurt his ankle."

"Come this way, young man," the doctor said, leading Saito over to the nearest bed. "You're a doctor, you say? Have you just arrived? I thought I knew all the doctors in the tower."

"No, no, I'm not _a_ doctor. _The_ Doctor. The definitive article, you might say," the Doctor said, offering the man a grin. "And you are?"

"Dr. Hideo Matsumoto," the man said, evidently unimpressed by the Doctor's name, a scorn underlined by the way he said it as he said "If you'll excuse me, _Doctor_, I'll see to the wounded security officer."

"Good idea," the Doctor said, nodding. He turned back to Shion, just as she finished her call. "Any luck?"

"Mori's not answering," Shion said. "Neither is his assistant."

The Doctor's stomach sunk through the floor. "They're dead."

Shion was taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"Think about it," the Doctor said. "Considering how much control the AI has over you people, it's not surprising that it monitors your communications. It knows it failed to kill us, and Sophie. It knows that it's been found out. It makes sense that it would target the man that can shut down its most important agents."

Shion looked hesitantly at the bots that drifted lazily through the room. "We need to put the population of the tower into lockdown immediately," she decided.

"Lock down?" the Doctor asked.

"There are areas in the tower which can be locked down and sealed off for an indefinite amount of time; most of the businesses, the schools, the Shinto temple, the Buddhist temple, the chapel. Medical Division, Security Division and secure bunkers on every residential level. We get all of the people in those, get all the bots out of there, and seal them all down, until we can figure out what to do."

"Good plan," the Doctor nodded. As he spoke, the elevator doors opened again, disgorging two familiar faces. When he saw Sophie emerge, his face split into a wide grin. "You get working on that, I'll see how my companion is doing."

"Right," Shion nodded, as the Doctor slipped past her.

Chihiro went immediately to her boss, and the Doctor scooped Sophie up into a hug, sweeping her off the floor.

"It's good to see you," the Doctor said, grinning ear to ear; it concerned him how quickly he'd become fond of Sophie, but he also keenly felt responsibility for her very presence on New Tokyo, and by extension her physical safety. "Are you all right?"

"It's good to see you, too," she said, laughing, as he set her down. Then she spied the bots scattered through the room, immediately tensing up. "What the hell are those things doing in here? I thought we were shutting them all down."

"The shut down doesn't seem to have worked," the Doctor said, and he helped her over to the bed beside Saito's. Matsumoto was running some sort of bone-knitting device over Saito's ankle, and the Doctor felt a flash of guilt for making Saito walk unaided.

"What are we going to do?" Sophie asked, as Matsumoto finished his work and came over to examine her. The doctor began running a handheld scanner over her, focusing it especially on her wounded knees and cheek.

"Shion and I are weighing our options," the Doctor said. "Our first plan was to shut down the bots, but that clearly didn't work. Now we need to find out how best to approach the AI. Either we can reboot it using the backup systems, which I doubt, or we'll have to shut it down entirely."

Matsumoto was listening intently, but hadn't been distracted from his work. He was using a device to stimulate the growth of Sophie's skin cells, easily closing up the wounds on her knees.

"But don't they rely on the AI?" Sophie asked, confused.

"Yes, we do," Matsumoto answered, as if instinctively.

"They'll have to learn to live without it," the Doctor said with a shrug. "I'll go and see how Shion is doing."

Sophie nodded, and the Doctor went to join Shion and Chihiro. He was still carrying the remnants of the bot that had been destroyed during the scuffle in the hydroponics bay.

"What's the plan?" the Doctor asked as he approached.

"I thought you would have one, Doctor," Shion said, not unkindly.

"I have about fifty," the Doctor said genially, "but I don't know this building as well as you do."

Shion looked pleasantly surprised by the admission. "I've already had Chihiro call in a lockdown. Every single one of this building's inhabitants should now be heading for a secure area. The Security Division personnel have been instructed to remove any bots from the secure areas, by force If need be."

"I take you're being discrete about the whole thing," the Doctor said, and Shion nodded.

"Of course. It wouldn't do to start a panic."

"The AI would have noticed, though." The Doctor said, his expression growing grim.

"Well, of course," Chihiro said, before comprehension dawned. "It'll be planning."

"What?" Shion asked.

Chihiro turned to her boss. "The AI is heuristic; it learns, continuously, builds its knowledge, changes its tactics. Its brain functions like ours does, but it does it with redundant memory back ups and an array of processors. The second it notices something going wrong, it adjusts its plans in order to compensate, and that's what it'll be doing right now."

Comprehension dawned on Shion. "The firewalls!"

Chihiro nodded. "It'll be attacking the programming firewalls around the safe zones. If it succeeds in bringing them down, it could suck all the oxygen out of them, killing tens of thousands of people at once. It could just open the doors, and let the bots back in…"

"Come on," Shion said to the Doctor and Chihiro. "We need to talk to my mother now."

"Hang on," the Doctor said, before turning to Dr. Matsumoto, who was standing at a computer terminal not too far away, logging the injuries he'd just treated into the building's records. "Where's your office?"

"My what?" Matsumoto asked, sounding flustered. "Why?"

"You have scientific equipment in there, don't you?" the Doctor asked.

"How did you know that?"

The Doctor smiled; he could never resist a chance to show off his deductive reasoning. "When we first came in, you had the look of a man of science disturbed in the middle of an experiment. Given your profession, I'd say some sort of disease cultivation program. Nothing too dangerous, obviously, which means to get interested, you'd have to go deep into the genetic make up. Which means, in the end, that you'd need rather powerful biological scanning equipment."

Matsumoto blinked. "A level seven deep tissue scanner," he said, as pointed towards the other end of the ward. "That way."

"Come on," the Doctor said, moving in the direction he'd pointed. Sophie got off her bed and joined him mid-stride.

Shion, as she made to follow them with Chihiro at her side, barked orders to Saito and Matsumoto. "I want every single one of these bots out of here, and I want this ward prepared for civilian occupation as soon as possible."

Matsumoto looked shocked. "Why, Ms. Yoshioka? What's happening?"

"The end of the world," was all she said.

* * *

><p>Matsumoto's office was decorated in the same shades and hues as the ward, but was much smaller. Along one wall was a low couch, and facing that was an array of computer banks and scientific equipment. There was a desk, embedded into which was a computer terminal, and a few chairs around it, but other than that was a wholly unremarkable chamber.<p>

Except, of course, for the blue electronic eye that glared down at them from the ceiling.

As soon as the Doctor entered the room, he lifted his sonic screwdriver and triggred it; the device activated, and with the light at its tip glowing and the now-familiar high-pitched fluting, it destroyed the electronic eye in a cascade of sparks.

"Good," Sophie said as she followed him inside. "Those things were giving me the creeps."

"I'd like to conclude this affair with a minimum of property damage if I may, Doctor," Shion added, and she wasted no time heading for the desk.

"You not have any choice," he answered. As Shion took the seat behind the desk, and Chihiro joined her, the Doctor went for the far wall, and began rapping his knuckles gently against it in odd places.

Shion tapped a few controls on the panel embedded in the desk, and waited for a few seconds while her call was routed.

"Who is you mother, anyway?" Sophie asked.

"Akiko Yoshioka is the Administrator," Chihiro explained, from her position at Shion's shoulder. "She's in overall command of Tower 402's administration and operation. Any major decisions have to go through her. Unfortunately…"

At Chihiro's reluctance to say anymore, Shion finished her thought. "Unfortunately, my mother can be… reticent. At the risk of sounding base: she can be a real bitch."

Sophie couldn't help but smile at that one, and despite what was happening around her, she felt a stab of jealousy that her relationship with her own mother had never had a chance to develop.

"Finally," Shion said, as the connection was made.

With a whir, a hologram came to life, generated by tiny projectors along the rim of the control panel. Sophie was amazed by the spectacle, though it looked like any she'd seen in a dozen sci-fi movies, a grainy, see-through reconstruction of a three-dimensional image. This one depicted an ageing east Asian woman, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Shion, sitting behind a desk.

"_What is it, daughter?_" Akiko Yoshioka's diminutive holographic avatar asked.

Sophie couldn't help but notice that Shion's entire demeanour had changed as soon as the image had come to life. "Mother, we have an emergency. Bots have begun attacked our personnel. I, myself, barely escaped with my life."

"_Is this a joke?_"

"Of course not!" Shion exclaimed.

"_I think that it must be a joke,_" the administrator answered, and even through the hologram, Sophie could tell that she was not at all amused. "_Because you know as well as I do that bots cannot possibly harm humans. It's been programmed into them from the moment their construction was started on the assembly line. We've never once had a problem with them._"

Shion couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Mother, one of my men died in hydroponics bay twelve! Another of my men was lying there, dead already. Both of them were killed by bots. This young woman," she said, pointing to Sophie, "barely escaped with her life not an hour ago. People are dying!"

"_Then initiate a bot shutdown,_" Akiko said dismissively, "_if it is so important to you._"

"I tried," Shion said, unable to believe her mother was acting with such callousness, "but I believe that Satoshi Mori has been killed. I'm contacting you because I have come to believe that a forced shutdown of the entire AI system may be our only way to combat this problem."

"_A forced shutdown,_" Akiko repeated, unimpressed. "_Have you lost your mind?_"

"Mother, I—"

"_No,_" Akiko said, slamming her small fist on the desk. "_This is completely unacceptable. A don't need to tell you how dangerous a forced shutdown of the AI would be. Do not contact me with a request of this nature ever again._"

Before Shion could say anything else, the image faded away. Shion slammed her own fist onto the desk.

"Hard luck," the Doctor said, still tapping away at random sections of the wall.

"What are you doing?" Shion demanded.

"Looking for a…" he began, before his rapping returned an echo. "A hollow section."

Activating his sonic screwdriver, he ran it around the edges of the hollow area he'd identified, and a second later a detached piece of the wall fell to the carpeted floor. Inside, Sophie saw, was the glowing blue spaghetti-like organic cabling the Doctor had shown her when they first arrived.

"The bioneural circuitry?" Chihiro asked, stepping closer.

With a quick zap of the screwdriver at either end of where the cabling was anchored into the wall, the Doctor unceremoniously jerked it free. He presented the sloppy mess, still glowing brightly, to Chihiro, and pointed towards the computer banks on the opposite wall. "You know a level seven deep tissue scanner when you see one, don't you?"

"Um, yes?" Chihiro asked, staring at the cabling in her hands, which was slowly oozing a shining blue liquid.

"Good," the Doctor said, and gave her a gentle shove towards it. "Run every scan you can think of on that circuitry."

As Chihiro set to work, the Doctor went over to Shion and Sophie. Taking a seat beside them, he set his ruined bot down the desk. Again, he used the sonic screwdriver to zap the control panel, and a small portal, like a USB post, opened on the panel's side.

"What are you doing, Doctor?" Sophie asked, leaning over to get a better look.

"This was the bot that killed Hoshi," the Doctor said, squinting as he used the sonic screwdriver to opened the ruined automaton's chassis. "If I can access its central processor, we can find out why it attacked us, and we can also use it as a back channel into the AI's systems."

"What for?" Sophie pressed.

"We can use it to combat the AI's attempts to hack our firewalls," Shion explained. "What is that device you're using, Doctor?"

"Sonic screwdriver," Sophie answered automatically. "I'm more interested in that piece of paper you showed Shion earlier."

"Oh," the Doctor said lightly, as he pried the plating from the bot's chassis. He began to pull apart the exposed circuitry, which looked to Sophie to be far more traditional than the AI's bioneural technology, if far more miniaturised than anything else she'd ever seen. "The psychic paper. Nifty little device. It shows whoever's looking at it whatever I want them to see. Or whatever they want to see, depending on the circumstances."

"It reads your mind?"

"Oh, yes," the Doctor nodded. "Nothing too invasive, just takes a quick look around."

"You're not really from Earth Command, are you?" Shion asked.

"No," the Doctor answered, and looked directly at her. Sophie had never seen that look in his eyes before; he was challenging her. It was a threatening, almost menacing gaze. "But I am here to help you. Got a problem with that?"

Shion looked uncomfortable. "No. I suppose I don't."

"Excellent," the Doctor said, and returned to his work.

"I have another question," Sophie said.

"Make it quick," the Doctor answered.

"Chihiro said I was speaking Japanese," Sophie began, remembering the moment of confusion up on the promenade level. "I am positive that I don't know how to speak Japanese."

"A gift of the TARDIS," the Doctor said quickly, stripping wires rapidly and inserting them into the exposed jack on the side of the control panel. "It's psychic, too; it allows you and I to speak or read any language or form of communication it can understand."

"Wait, so that ship of yours gets inside my head?"

The Doctor looked up at her. "Sophie, if there's anything you should have learnt from your encounter with the chronivorous leech, it's that your mind is not a sancrosanct environment."

She gaped at him, unable to believe what he was saying. "Excuse me? How dare you?"

The Doctor sighed. "That's not what I meant."

"Yes it was," she answered, shaking her head. "It was exactly what you meant."

He set aside the bisected bot, and stood up, facing her directly. "Look, Sophie, you've got to understand. If you travel with me, you'll see wondrous things. Beautiful, amazing things, but it comes at a price. Things that will make you uncomfortable, times of great danger. I'm not trying to hurt or to scare you, and neither is the TARDIS."

Sophie looked at him for a few moments, her eyes defiant. Finally, her resistance wilted and she sighed. "Fine. I get it."

"Who are you two?" Shion asked, looking utterly bewildered.

"I'm the Doctor," he said simply. "This is my companion Sophie Freeman. She's human, I'm not. We're not from Earth Command, and this is not my first rodeo. Can I get back to work now, please?"

Shion nodded mutely, and even though Sophie still looked deeply disturbed, the Doctor didn't have time to worry about that now. Finally, he finished inserting the wires into the jack, and with one last zap of his sonic screwdriver, he reactivated the destroyed bot.

With a jerking, shaking movement, it rose an inch from the desk, its remaining antigrav units struggling to keep it aloft. Shion and Sophie leapt back, but the Doctor looked at the bot. "What the hell did you do that for?" Shion barked.

"It's still got its vocorder unit," the Doctor explained, voice level, as though he were explaining something incidental. "Maybe we can get some answers." The bot struggled to rise any higher, and the Doctor knew it would be long before it burnt out and was destroyed. He only had a few seconds, then. "Would you like to do the honours?"

Shion, having regained her composure, stood up and leant towards the bot. Bot, state your serial number."

The voice that issued forth from the damaged bot was tinny and shaky, but still clear enough to understand. "_Unit Five-Nine-Oh-Oh-Buru._"

Shion and the Doctor shared a look, and he grinned, pleased he had managed to get the bot working. "Ask it what it's been doing," he urged.

Shion cleared her throat. "Oh-Oh-Buru, what is your current assignment?"

"_Sterilisation,_" the bot announced.

Shion blinked, and Sophie looked to the Doctor for some kind of clarification. His expression, however, had grown stony, his expression distant.

"Please clarify," Shion pushed. The bot didn't answer, so she repeated her demand: "Oh-Oh-Buru, please clarify. What is your current assignment?"

"_Sterilisation,_" the bot repeated.

"What are you sterilising, Oh-Oh-Buro?" the Doctor asked.

"_The infection._"

"What is it talking about?" Sophie asked. "What infection?"

The bot began to answer, but its response was lost in a sea of static as its vocorder units gave out and it collapsed back to the desk, its antigravs having wheezed their last.

"Us," came the unexpected answer. "The infection is us."

The three of them looked up, to find Chihiro looking shaky and white over at the computer bank. "What do you mean?" the Doctor asked.

"I just finished running the scans," Chihiro explained. "The bioneural circuitry has been infected with some kind of virus. A biological virus. According to the readings, it's a mild strain of influenza."

"Any human could handle it no problem," the Doctor concluded. "But a biological computer, unless its safeguards were up to the minute, wouldn't have a chance. The virus would spread through it. The AI would identify the source as the human occupants of the tower, and since the virus would have corrupted its programming, it would have started looking for ways to rid itself of the source of the infection."

"And with all the software glitches after the upgrades…" Shion said, joining in.

"The safeguards weren't functioning at peak efficiency," the Doctor said, nodding. "The virus got in, spread and turned the AI against the inhabitants of the building."

"Then why hasn't it killed everyone already?" Sophie asked. "I mean, if it's had access to every part of the tower, every system…"

"My guess is that it's been trying to overcome the safety lockouts, the programming firewalls," the Doctor said. "It's been using the bots because they're not as well protected as the atmospheric systems, or the food or the water or the elevators. They've been hardwired not to injure humans, so everyone assumes that they're safe."

Shion swallowed. "It's my fault."

"What do you mean?" the Doctor asked, turning towards her.

"After the first two people vanished," Shion said, guilt and shame clouding her expression. "I should have actually looked at the problem, examined the bots…"

"It's not your fault, ma'am," Chihiro said quickly. "None of us ever thought it could have been them, not even Gen Nakamura."

Shion flashed a thankful smile at Chihiro, but shook her head. "Regardless, I was in charge of the investigation and I failed to follow up a lead. It is my responsibility, no matter how this all turns out."

"Well," the Doctor added. "Yours and your mother's."

"What do you mean?" Shion asked.

"If the virus has gotten as far as it has, we need to force a shutdown of the AI," the Doctor explained. "That means I need to get up to her office and activate the protocols."

"We need to get up to her office," Shion corrected him, stepping forward. "My mother's probably not going to cooperate, and if she doesn't, you'll need my access codes."

The Doctor nodded. "Fine, but watch your back. I don't want you to end up like Hoshi."

Shion winced. "The feeling is mutual, Doctor."

Turning to Sophie and Chihiro, he said "I need you two to stay here. I can't guarantee your safety if you come with us, and I don't need to be looking over my shoulder to make sure you're both okay every ten seconds."

Sophie sighed, but nodded. "Fine. Just be careful, won't you?"

The Doctor gave her a smile, and stepped over to her. Pulling her into a hug, he whispered "Stay safe, Sophie Freeman. You've only just met me; there's a lot more to see yet."

Sophie smiled. "I'll be fine, Doctor."

Releasing his companion, he turned to Chihiro. "As soon as the AI figures out what Ms. Yoshioka and I are trying to do, it'll come after us with everything's it got, and it will redouble its attacks on the firewalls. It might even have its bots try to break into the secure areas. I need you at that terminal, fighting off every computer incursion it makes."

"I'm not qualified to do that!" Chihiro protested.

"You don't need to beat it," the Doctor said, "but you do need to keep it guessing."

Chihiro shook her head, but the Doctor took her by the shoulders. "You can do it, Chihiro. I know you can. You just need to buy us enough time to get to the Administrator's office."

Taking a deep breath, the young woman nodded, and went to the terminal with the destroyed bot still plugged into it. "The bot will give me a back door into the AI's command and control interface," she said, more to herself than to anyone else. "Once I'm in, I can trace its attacks, maybe block a few of them."

"How long do you think you can give us?"

"Twenty minutes," Chihiro said apologetically. "Maybe half an hour."

The Doctor nodded. "Then that's good enough. Sophie, look after Chihiro, won't you?"

Sophie grinned. "Of course."

Turning back to Shion, he smiled. "Come on, Ms. Yoshioka, we've got work to do."


	18. The Deadly Tower: 7

**'The Deadly Tower'**

_7. Gambit_

* * *

><p>Matsumoto had never seen his ward so crowded with healthy people before. There were men and women of all ages, and all of them looked frightened and concerned. He'd assigned most of them to beds, and had assigned one of his staff as to each row as a sort of precinct captain, but the people kept coming. A dozen black-uniformed Security Division men had arrived, and on Saito's orders several of them had cordoned off access to Matsumoto's office; the rest had helped Saito get the hovering bots out of the room.<p>

The people kept pestering him and his staff for information, but he begged off each time, promising that information would be forthcoming. At least, he thought privately, he hoped it would.

He was on the opposite side of the ward when he heard a quick burst of activity as Shion Yoshioka and the man that had called himself the Doctor emerged from the isolated office. People were quickly pressing on them, civilians demanding answers from the Administrator's daughter, but Shion was ignoring them, and supported by her Security Division men, was heading with the Doctor directly for the elevator.

Matsumoto began to head over to them, but he saw Saito reach them first.

Saito and the Doctor helped Shion climb up onto a hospital bed, and she cupped her hands around her mouth. "Ladies and gentlemen!" The general hubbub in the ward picked up intensity for a moment, before she shouted again. "Ladies and gentlemen, quiet! Please!"

Finally, the chatter stopped, and all eyes focused on Shion Yoshioka.

"I understand that you're confused and frightened, but my people and I are working on swiftly resolving these issues. Please, follow the instructions of the staff, and especially the Security Division personnel. Mr. Saito here is in overall command of this area, and all authority devolves to him until such a time as the crisis we are facing has passed."

There were shouted questions about the nature of the crisis, but more information wasn't forthcoming; the Doctor and Saito helped her down, and then she and the Doctor slipped out of the ward.

Matsumoto reached Saito. "What's happening?"

The Security Division man looked incredibly harried, but he mustered a wan smile. "Ms. Yoshioka and the Doctor are heading up to the Administrator's office. I don't know why. We've got to keep everyone in this area, and barricade the doors."

"Why?" Matsumoto asked, alarmed.

"Because we're about to be attacked by bots."

* * *

><p>The Doctor and Shion wasted no time once they'd left the ward. The corridors down which they ran were all abandoned, and there was no sign of any movement whatsoever; the Doctor found himself wondering where the bots were. Every time they passed beneath a glowing blue electronic eye, the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to short it out. He wasn't interested in having the AI track their movements in real time.<p>

"Here!" Shion announced suddenly, and they came to a stop at an elevator door. It looked smaller than the other elevators the Doctor had travelled in in Tower 402, but somehow cleaner, less well-used. "An executive elevator. It should take us all the way to the top floor, directly to my mother's office."

"Unless the AI figures out what we're doing," the Doctor countered.

"Even if it has broken the programming lock out on the elevator systems, the AI won't be able to drop the car to the bottom of the shaft," Shion explained as she activated the control that would summon the car to their floor.

"It could freeze the elevator, though," the Doctor said, "I imagine by using the same electromagnetic locking units that would keep it from dropping us to the bottom of shaft. Either way, we're sitting ducks."

Shion shrugged. "The top floor is three kilometres above us. Our best chance here is to get as high as we can in the elevator, and then reassess once the AI catches on."

The Doctor nodded, as the elevator doors opened. She and the Doctor stepped inside immediately. Shion tapped the button for the top floor, and the elevator doors shut behind them. The Doctor looked up, and sure enough, there was the familiar blue glow of the electronic eye. The Doctor lifted his sonic screwdriver once again, and triggered it.

The eye exploded spectacularly as the elevator car surged upwards.

* * *

><p>From his position at the main doorway of the ward, Saito had an excellent view of the main ingress into the secure area. He'd quickly gathered together a mostly volunteer force of medical staff personnel and civilians to back up his Security Division men, and they'd piled up furniture either side of the door, ready to be pushed across the entryway so they could barricade it off.<p>

That's when he saw it, towards the end of the corridor; the first bot, its laser cutter and plasma torch gleaming, drifting slowly towards the entryway. Then, behind it, he saw dozens more. There must have been almost a hundred, the volume of their combined antigrav units rising exponentially as they drew closer.

Saito swallowed. "Seal the door," he barked at the nearest Security Division man. "Barricade it."

The Security Division man and the gathered defenders moved to block off the door. Saito turned away from it, looking out into the ward. There must have been three hundred people in there, and he knew there'd be gatherings like this throughout Tower 402, and that Security Section personnel and volunteers at all of them would be preparing for combat.

They'd smashed furniture, and gathered together the pieces to be used as weapons against the bots, though those improvised weapons wouldn't last long against them.

Saito knew that their best chance was to hold the bots off long enough for the Doctor and Ms. Yoshioka to force the AI to shutdown. The second they did, the bots would go offline, and the people of Tower 402 would be safe. Saito had a creeping feeling that, before the day was out, they'd lose a lot of people.

He climbed onto a chair, and lifted his voice to be heard over the noise of the crowd. "Everyone, please be quiet!"

It took a few moments, but eventually the staff members operating as precinct captains shushed their civilian charges, and all eyes fell to Saito.

He cleared his throat, falling back on his training. "I understand that this must be very frightening for you all, but I need you all to listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you. In a matter of minutes, we may well be under attack. It is imperative you follow every order given to you by the staff member you've been assigned to. I want you all to get against the walls, and to barricade yourselves behind every available piece of furniture you can find. Get under beds. Arm yourselves with whatever you can find. Work together. Trust each other. Follow orders. You'll all come out of this safe."

Saito didn't bother to wait for the barrage of questions, and quickly rushed to Matsumoto's office, since colonised by the Doctor's companion, Sophie, and Chihiro, who was typing away furiously at the control console in the desk.

"They're on their way," Saito said.

Sophie looked up at him and nodded, looking immediately back down at what Chihiro was doing. The boss' assistant was frowning, focusing intensely on the compter screen.

"How's she doing?" Saito asked.

"It's complicated," Chihiro said immediately. "The AI keeps launching attacks against the firewall, and it's doing it all faster than I can compensate. God, it would help if I had Mori or one of his guys up here."

"I haven't seen anyone from their Division," Saito said. "Everywhere's been locked down."

"How long until the bots are on us?" Sophie asked.

"It could be a while," Saito told her, "but there are a lot of them. That's actually what I came in to tell you. I need to reassign the Security Division men I've got stationed here to the outer perimeter."

"We'll be defenceless," Chihiro said, still not taking her eyes off the screen in front of her.

"No, you won't," Sophie said, standing up and sucking in a deep breath, drawing herself up to her full height. "Mr. Saito, I need a weapon."

From the ward, they heard a cry. Saito poked his head out of the office, and, turning back to Sophie, he said "They're here."

* * *

><p>They were fully two thirds of the way up the shaft by the Doctor's reckoning when the elevator came screeching to a halt.<p>

"Damn it," Shion said, and went to the console to try and get the elevator moving again.

"Don't worry about it," the Doctor said, again lifting his sonic screwdriver. He aimed it at the ceiling of the elevator car. "The AI would have locked you out of the system."

"What are you going to do?" Shion asked, as the Doctor activated the screwdriver.

Sparks fell from the ceiling, but a slim panel popped upwards. The panel protected a small access hatchway onto the roof of the car.

"Come on," the Doctor said, "I'll give you a boost."

Getting to his knees, he helped Shion up through the hatch, and then, bracing himself, jumped upwards, his fingers catching hold of the edge. He slowly, painfully hurled himself upwards until Shion grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and pulled him free. Together, they collapsed in a heap on the roof of the elevator car.

"Sorry about that," the Doctor said. "I don't think I'll ever get used to the size and weight of this body."

Shion looked at him quizzically, but decided not to ask him any follow up questions, given the grave nature of their task. The elevator shaft was dark but surprising clean; this elevator didn't run on a cable, but rather electromagnetic tracks that glowed a dark, almost menacing red. The air seemed full, humid, and crackled with electricity.

"There's an emergency ladder over there," Shion said, pointing to a ladder, its steps recessed into the wall of the shaft.

"It would take too long to climb it," the Doctor said dismissively.

"So what's the plan?" Shion urged.

The Doctor lifted a finger, signalling to her to be quiet. He was listening for something, a sound quite distinct from the low hum of the electromagnetic tracks. There it was; the familiar, threatening, high-pitched drone of antigravs.

"Bots!" Shion said, looking about. The bots were descending quickly from above, just a pair of them.

The Doctor reacted before Shion could, however; he lifted his screwdriver, quickly cycling through settings. "I had a chance to test the screwdriver against the bot's design while we were down in the Medical Division. I've found a way to lock out the AI's control program."

"Okay," Shion nodded, urging him on. The bots were getting closer and closer now; through the gloom, they could see the glowing laser cutter and plasma torch on each. "So what?"

"So," the Doctor said, finally choosing a setting, "we're going to hitch a ride all the way up to the top floor. Those antigravs should hold our weight."

Shion would have grinned, had the bots not chosen that exact time to attack. The Doctor nudged Shion aside and activated the screwdriver; the two bots lifted their implements, were poised to strike, and then froze in mid-air.

"It looks like we've got our ride," the Doctor said with a grin.

* * *

><p>Down in the Medical Division, the battle had begun. It had only taken the bots a few moments to slice through the doors and then the furniture they'd used to barricade themselves in; Saito had seen a half dozen Security Divison men fall in the first few minutes, but since then he and his men, Security and volunteer alike, had rallied and now they were holding their own against the tide of bots. The civilians were doing well, too.<p>

The bots, however, seemed to know where they were supposed to be going; they had concentrated their efforts on trying to break the rather narrow cordon around the office in which Sophie and Chihiro were holed up. Saito cursed himself for having ordered his men away from it, and gathered together a small handful of volunteers to help him reinforce their position.

He dodged a bot, shot out of the sky by a Security Division man's stun pistol, its sparking, broken form shattering against the deck. With his stun baton in one hand, a metal bar in the other, he leapt over a bed and brought the bar down atop a hovering bot which was doing battle with one of the Medical Division staff members. The bot was smashed, falling to the ground, and Saito drove his stun baton into the damaged automaton. A second later, its processor exploded.

"Come with me," he urged the Medical Division staffer, and continued on his way towards the embattled office.

Inside, Sophie had her back pressed against the couch, which had been turned upside down and wedged against the door. She could hear a laser cutter hard at work, and she knew it would only be a few moments before a bot broke through.

"Damn it!" Chihiro called. "The AI got through to the elevator systems. That firewall is gone."

"What does that mean?" Sophie asked, taking a deep breath. Saito had given her a stun baton, and a crash course on how to use it, but she was still uneasy. She'd fought those bots already today, and she'd barely escaped with her life.

"It means that the Doctor and Ms. Yoshioka are stuck in an elevator that can't move!" Chihiro wailed. "They're sitting ducks!"

"Don't worry about it!" Sophie urged. "Just keep working!"

Chihiro was shaking her head now, tears streaming from her eyes. "If they can't get up to the top-floor office, we're all going to die."

"Chihiro, if the AI breaks through the firewalls," Sophie said, "we're all going to die anyway."

Chihiro swallowed, looking at her, and Sophie saw a light come on behind her terrified eyes. Chihiro returned to the console, and started inputting commands, just as the laser cutter stopped. Sophie turned, just in time to see a bot slam into the door, shattering the weakened metal. Sophie was sent sprawling, but the bot ignored her, flying straight for Chihiro.

"No!" Sophie cried, pulling herself to her feet and lifting the baton.

It was too late; Chihiro looked up and screamed as the bot fell on her. Sophie swiped at it with the stun baton, and its processors shorted out. The bot tumbled away, broken, but Chihiro was dead beneath it.

"No," Sophie repeated, falling to her knees beside the body of the girl she'd come to see over the last few hours as a friend.

She heard feet pounding the carpet behind her. She looked up to find Saito, bloodied and wounded. He was about to ask about Chihiro, but Sophie shook her head. She was gone.

"We can mourn her later," Saito said, pulling Sophie to her feet. "The bots aren't going anywhere."

Wiping away tears, Sophie nodded, and she brandished her stun baton as half a dozen bots appeared in the doorway. The battle wasn't over yet.

* * *

><p>The bots struggled under the weight of the Doctor and Shion, but eventually deposited the two of them on the top floor. With another zap from his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor opened the outer elevator doors, and they stepped out into a darkened lobby.<p>

There was a sitting area and a desk for a secretary, but it was abandoned. There were no lights on, and the flowers arranged for display in the sitting area were old.

"When was the last time you talked to your mother?" the Doctor asked as Shion led him towards the doors to the main office. "In person, I mean."

"A few weeks ago," Shion said. "But that's not unusual. She's… eccentric. She barely even uses her quarters on the lower level. She prefers to sleep in her private office."

"It's locked," the Doctor said as they reached the door. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw that the one source of light in the room was a small, glowing blue electronic eye. He didn't bother to destroy it, instead using the sonic screwdriver on the lock. It didn't open. "Damn. Deadlock seal."

"Hang on," Shion said, and went to the control console embedded in the wall beside it. "My override codes should still work."

Sure enough, the Doctor heard the lock click open. Grabbing Shion's hand, he led the way into her mother's office. The air inside the room was stuffy, too hot, and there was a stench, thick enough to gag.

"Oh my God, what is it?" Shion exclaimed.

The Doctor lifted his screwdriver, activating it; a moment later, the lights in the room flickered on. The office was spectacularly well-appointed, richly decorated and all centred around a wide, expansive desk cluttered with paperwork and personal items, behind which sat a dead woman.

Shion's mouth fell open.

"I thought we'd find this," the Doctor said. "I'm so sorry, Shion."

She turned on him. "What are you talking about? You thought we'd, what, find my mother dead?"

"When you were talking to her down in the Medical Division," the Doctor said, "there was something off about her speech patterns. No contractions. A pitch variance between words."

"Who was I talking to, then?" Shion asked, shock clearly visible in her expression.

"The AI," the Doctor said. "It probably monitored your mother every hour of every day for her entire life. Stored enough of her biometric data to create a top-notch recreation. The only thing it would have had to do was piece together words from recorded transmissions, which accounts for the pitch troubles."

Shion shook her head, blinking back tears. "She's my _mother_."

"Shion, I know how hard this must be, but sixty thousand people are depending on us right now," the Doctor said, and he took her hand, squeezing it. "Show me where the mainframe for the AI is."

Shion nodded mutely, and pulled the Doctor towards a door towards the back of the office. Inputting her code again, the door opened, revealing a spherical metal chamber, at the centre of which was a glowing blue pyramid, about a metre high, jutting out of the floor. That was the "brain" of the AI, the Doctor realised, and he saw the console towards the tip of the pyramid.

"All right," he said to Shion, "let's get to work."

* * *

><p>Sophie and Saito had been fighting bots for several minutes now; the battle had grown dirty, tiring. She'd personally destroyed seven bots, but dozens more were pressing down upon the two of them and their ragged line of defenders.<p>

"Come on!" she cried, helping a wounded man back to his feet, ignoring the tears that were pouring from her eyes. She recognised Dr. Matsumoto. "Come on, Doc! We've got work to do!"

The bots, though, were suddenly completely uninterested in the defenders; all of them were falling back towards the exits.

"What's happening?" Saito asked, voicing the single thought everyone in the Medical Division shared.

"The AI's sending them after the Doctor and Shion," Sophie said, wiping away the tears in the corners of her eyes. "Come on, we have to help them!"

* * *

><p>The levels of the glowing pyramid were going dark one by one as Shion desperate worked to shout down the AI. With no warning at all, the floor beneath their feet shook dangerously. The Doctor flung out a hand to stabilise himself, but to Shion's credit she continued working as though nothing had happened.<p>

"What was that?" the Doctor demanded.

"The AI is trying to shake us loose," Shion said, not looking up from her work. "It must reactivating the old engines, at the very base of the tower."

"Taking off would tear the building apart," the Doctor said.

"I think it's trying to threaten us into stopping," Shion answered. "Now, quiet! I need to work!"

The Doctor mumbled something, but turned away just in time to see a dozen or more bots spill from the open door of the main office. "You might want to work a little faster, Shion!" he called.

"Why?"

"We've got company!" the Doctor said, stepping out of the small mainframe room. The bots were speeding towards him, weapons outstretched. He lifted his sonic screwdriver, and hoped the frequency he'd chosen would still work. The building shook, harder than before, and the late Akiko Yoshioka's personal effects began to clatter to the floor.

It was becoming harder and harder to remain standing as the bots drew closer and closer. The Doctor activated his screwdriver, turning the settings to maximum; the first few exploded, collapsing to the floor, but even more took their places. The Doctor began to fall back as the bots drew closer, until he finally backed up against the door to the mainframe room.

"Shion!" he called. "We're running out of time!"

A stray strike from a laser cutter sizzled past his cheek, and he stumbled back into the mainframe room. The mainframe itself was almost two-thirds dark now, but the going was slow and getting slower.

"A few more minutes," she insisted, and the Doctor turned back to find the first of the bots slip through the door.

The Doctor attacked it with his screwdriver, but aside from a volley of sparks erupting from the underside of its dome, it continued on towards him. He backed up, cycling through the settings on the screwdriver. Nothing was affecting the bot, which was getting closer and closer, its weapons extended towards the door. Another had gotten through the door, and was angling towards Shion.

The Doctor swallowed, ready to fight hand to hand, when he heard the high-pitched squeal of a stun pistol, like the one Shion had used to threaten he and Sophie earlier. He heard shouting, the clattering of boots on carpet, and then the bot before him exploded. He saw Saito standing in the doorway, stun pistol in hand. The building shook again, more violently than ever, and the Doctor lost his footing, just as Saito got off a shot that destroyed the bot advancing towards Shion.

Shion herself had fallen now, with just one last layer of the pyramid still glowing. She was struggling to get up, but the Doctor pushed himself up first, and moved with singular purpose towards the pyramid. The building shook again, and he fell, harder than he had before.

The breath knocked from his lungs, the Doctor struggled to get back up, only to feel someone wrap their arms around him and help him to his feet. Sophie Freeman gave him a quick grin, and he saw that she'd been crying. His hearts broke for her, but he didn't have time; together, they made their way over to the pyramid. They helped Shion up, and she tapped one last control.

The pyramid went dark, and with one almighty shake, throwing them all to the ground, the AI was shut down.


	19. The Deadly Tower: 8

**'The Deadly Tower'**

_8. Farewell_

* * *

><p>"Here we are," the Doctor said, as he, Sophie and Shion returned to the conference room in which the TARDIS had landed that morning. It felt like days since he'd seen that beautiful box, and just being in the same room as it was relaxing, even if that room had not faired well during the death throes of the tower's AI; glow panels had busted, the ceiling had cracked and the chairs broken. The blinds had closed over the window again, perhaps as some kind of automatic measure during the chaos.<p>

"There's a lot of damage," Sophie remarked.

"We'll recover," Shion promised her, before noticing the tall blue box that had been set against the far corner of the chamber. "That's your ship?"

"Don't knock it 'til you've tried it," the Doctor said, a little too defensively. "Actually, that gives me an idea."

"Oh?" Shion said, resting her hand against the exterior of the TARDIS. "Wait, is it wood?"

Sophie smiled. "Not really, truth be told."

Shion looked at her, confused. "Then what is it?"

"Well, that's a long story," Sophie admitted. She looked at the Doctor, and suddenly felt the exhaustion of the day settle on her shoulders. She thought of Chihiro, the young woman's easy smile, so like Leisel's. She'd just wanted to help. "Doctor, I'm tired. Would you mind if I went and had a lie down?"

The Doctor offered her a small, comforting smile. "Of course not, Sophie. I'm proud of you."

Sophie tried to return his smile, but found that she couldn't. What he'd said had been nice to hear, yes, but that didn't outweigh what had happened to Chihiro and Hoshi and Nakamura and Shion's mother and so many other inhabitants of Tower 402. Even the AI itself, responsible as it was for the carnage, had been a loss; the virus that had affected its biological circuitry had corrupted it, and its destruction had been an unfortunate necessity.

"Is it always like this?" she asked him. He simply nodded.

Sighing Sophie went to the TARDIS doors, and gently pushed on the doors. They swung open for her, and she felt the warm light of the interior wash over her. Taking a deep breath, she stepped inside and let the door close behind her.

"How's she going to lie down in there?" Shion asked. "It must be tiny."

The Doctor looked at her, and lifted an eyebrow. "What's that, sorry?"

"I mean, it's just a small blue box. In what way is that a space ship?" she asked, still staring in wonder at the TARDIS.

"I can show you, if you like," the Doctor said, rapping his knuckles on the TARDIS. "You can come with Sophie and I."

Shion frowned. "It's tempting, it really is. I've lived on New Tokyo my entire life. I can count on both hands the number of times I've left this Tower… to go with you and Sophie, and see other times, other worlds? How could anyone ever say no to an offer like that?"

The Doctor smiled knowingly. "You're going to find a way, aren't you?"

Shion shrugged apologetically. "I owe it to them, Doctor. Now that my mother's gone, this tower needs a new administrator. We don't have an AI running things anymore, and the entire colony's about to be thrown into chaos. That's millions of people, all of whom will need leadership and guidance."

"I can't imagine anyone better qualified," the Doctor said.

Shion nodded. "It was my pleasure to meet you, Doctor. Say goodbye to Sophie, will you?"

"Yes, I'm sorry about her abrupt departure," the Doctor said, frowning slightly. "This is her first trip off her homeworld, you see… I don't think she was prepared for it. Though, to be honest, who would ever want to be prepared for all that killing?"

Shion's shoulders slumped. "Hoshi and Chihiro were so young."

"You'll do works worthy of their memory, Shion Yoshioka. I'm sure of it," the Doctor, offering her a quick salute as he made for the TARDIS door. "See you again, maybe."

"I hope so, Doctor," she said, smiling genuinely. She returned his salute.

"Watch this," he said with a wink as he slipped through the TARDIS doors. Shion shook her head, smiling; she realised for the first time as he disappeared inside that blue box of his that she was emotionally exhausted. She blinked, trying to hold back tears. In the last twenty-four hours, she'd been forced to choose between two impending dooms, seen her young assistant die before her very eyes and found her mother's desiccated corpse.

Despite all that, though, she was happy just to be alive, happy that her tower was still standing, that its inhabitants were, for the most part, safe once again. New Tokyo had survived a grave threat, even if only by the skin of its teeth, and she had been a big part of that. Despite the disaster, despite the death, there was a lot to be thankful for.

Then it began. A noise, deep and rumbling, seemed to build up from the very floor on which she stood. Wind whipped around her, disturbing the debris that had fallen across the furniture. She struggled to keep her eyes open as the light atop the big blue box, the Doctor's TARDIS, pulsed.

The box began to fade away until, finally, it had disappeared entirely.

Shaking her head in disbelief, she could do nothing but laugh. It was the first time she'd truly laughed in weeks, months. Maybe even years. It was laughter that filled her up and made her whole and spilled forth and filled up the entire world with joy and glee.

She was alive, and she was free. For now, that was enough.

* * *

><p>As the Doctor set the TARDIS' controls for a nice, easy coast in the Time Vortex to give Sophie some time to rest, he sighed, and rested his hands against the console. His legs were in agony, and he had a slight headache; an intensely busy day. Not at all what he would have wished for his new companion's first trip aboard the TARDIS.<p>

Then, of course, travel in the TARDIS was never easy, and it was rarely safe.

"Doctor," he heard Sophie say as she emerged from the corridor that led to her room. Her eyes were red, her cheeks streaked with tears. "I take it we're not on New Tokyo anymore?"

"Just left," the Doctor said, unsure how he should go about broaching the topic of Chihiro's death with her, as obvious to him as it was that she needed to talk.

Thankfully, Sophie took the initiative, joining him at the console.

"I survived a car crash that killed my parents right in front of my eyes. I have seen literally everyone I have ever known literally vanish from the world," she said, staring at the constantly changing script on the scanner screen. "But nothing… _nothing_ compares to seeing Chihiro just _lying there_ like that."

The Doctor sighed and, unbidden, thoughts of all those who'd died helping him, who'd died because of him, came flooding through his mind. "I'm sorry to say, Sophie, that it never gets any easier."

"Good," she said, "because if it ever did… I think I'd have to go home."

The Doctor perked up. "You mean you want to keep travelling with me?"

Sophie shook her head. "As hard as it was today, as difficult and exhausting and heartbreaking, good was done. You did good. _I_ did good. We saved lives. Hundreds of them, thousands of them. I was standing on an alien planet, and I saved lives."

Smiling like a fool, the Doctor nodded. "Yes, Sophie, you did."

"I don't want to stop that," she said. "Besides, when the world vanished, you were the only person who stayed with me. I think I owe you one."

She extended her hand, but the Doctor ignored it, instead pulling her into a hug. She closed her eyes against his chest, squeezing him as tightly as she could. She would never forget those that had lost their lives, but she couldn't ignore the fact that thousands of others were still alive.

"All right, then," the Doctor said, turning back to the TARDIS console as he released her from his grip. He began to manipulate the controls as he spoke. "Where to next? You've seen the future, now, so how about the past? Frost fairs on the River Thames, perhaps. We could visit the Gupta Samrajya in India. And I've always wanted to meet Ernest Hemingway."

"Hemingway would be cool," Sophie said, but she touched him on the shoulder to stop his work. "Not yet, though. I need a rest. It's been a long day."

The Doctor grunted. "I suppose you're right."

Sophie smiled at him, patting him on the shoulder. She started to head for the passage down to her room, but she paused and said over her shoulder "One more thing, Doctor."

He raised his eyebrow. "Did you just Columbo me?"

Sophie laughed. "Yeah, I suppose I did. You explained the sonic screwdriver to me. You explained the psychic paper, the TARDIS. But you're an alien. You didn't tell me that."

The Doctor shrugged. "You're an alien, to a lot of people."

"You know what I mean."

He sighed. "Yes, I am what you would call an alien."

"Okay," Sophie nodded, prompting him to continue. "Where are you from? What species are you? Are there other Doctors out there, somewhere?"

A dark expression crossed his features. "I'm a Time Lord, from a planet called Gallifrey. And no, there are no other Doctors out there. No more Time Lords. Just me."

Sophie blanched. "That's what you meant, isn't it? When you told me that you knew what it was to be alone? You didn't mean travelling by yourself."

The Doctor shook his head. "No. I didn't."

"What happened to your people?"

"A car crash," the Doctor attempted to joke, but Sophie's steely expression killed the nascent smile he wore. "A war. My planet was destroyed. It was my fault, the whole thing. I started it. I damn sure ended it. It happened a long time ago, though; a lot has happened since then. It doesn't weigh as heavily upon me as it once did."

"I'm sorry," Sophie said, and he could see that she truly meant it. "I know it can't be easy."

"It isn't," the Doctor nodded, "but I have my friends. I have the TARDIS. I have you. Go rest, Sophie Freeman. Another big tomorrow."

"And a big day after that, I'm sure."

"Always," the Doctor said, with a cheeky smile and a wink.

She started back for the passage, but again stopped, and shot back another question. "Do you ever sleep?"

"No rest for the wicked, Sophie," he said, his smile dying away. "I'm over a thousand years old. After all that time, everything I've done, I'm nothing if not wicked."

"A thousand years old?" she echoed quietly.

"Goodnight, Sophie," he said, suddenly feeling the weight of all his years of travel, adventure, of disaster and death. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Nodding, she slipped out of the console room, leaving the Doctor alone in the cavernous chamber, with its mysterious, ethereal glow and the gentle sounds of the TARDIS engines at rest. He sighed, his shoulders slumped, and putting thoughts of the past from his mind, he thought instead of the future, of what tomorrow might bring.

* * *

><p><strong>The story continues in 'Eppur Si Muove'<strong>

**COMING SOON**


	20. Eppur si Muove: 1

**Historian's Note: **the following story takes place primarily in 1633, and occurs very shortly after the conclusion of the previous story, 'The Deadly Tower'

* * *

><p><strong>'Eppur si Muove'<strong>

_1. Despised by the Vulgar_

* * *

><p>The ancient, walled city of Siena was just starting to cool as the sun dipped below the hills in the east, the heat from the Tuscan summer clinging to the streets like a wet, heavy blanket. It was a beautiful place, Siena, its stone buildings packed tightly together, its wide piazzas hives of buzzing activity and movement, the soaring spire of the Torre del Mangia keeping a brooding watch over the city and its people.<p>

The young girl's broken body, found at the end of the alleyway not far from the Piazza del Campo, was the counterpoint of ugliness to the city's beauty. She would have been a pretty maiden in life, but now, in death, with an expression of abject terror frozen permanently on her face, she was nothing but pitiable. Her throat had been slashed ear to ear, her dark hair matted with clotted blood, her eyes open, glassy and transfixed, staring off into the rapidly gathering night.

"May God have mercy on her soul," the old friar, Father Antonio, said to the man who'd come down from the castle, a burly professional soldier named Ferdinando. "I'll have to tell the Archbishop about this."

"Forget the Archbishop," the man from the castle said. "We'll have to contact Rome. They'll send an inquisitor, and make no mistake."

"An inquisitor," Father Antonion repeated. "Of all the luck."

"Six bodies turned up like this in less than a month?" Ferdinando said. "The streets of Siena are running with the blood of maidens, Father, and we have no idea how to combat this. We have no idea who's doing this."

Father Antonio blessed himself, and the body of the girl. She'd been found by a peasant, an old woman who'd run screaming into Father Antonio's church, begging for the girl's soul. Antonio now found himself repeating her prayers, urging them up to the heavens, hoping against hope that, even though he could only offer partial salvation to the dead girl, that she'd died with her virtue intact. He prayed now, and would for a long time, that Saint Peter would welcome her through the golden gates of heaven, into the Kingdom of God.

"How come I haven't heard of these murders?" Antonio managed to ask at last. He had seen troubling things in his lifetime, but the thought of half a dozen girls slaughtered like this one hurt him to his very bones.

"Decision of the Archbishop and the powers that be," Ferdinando said. "I've been assigned to investigate the slayings."

"Slayings?" Antonio repeated, disturbed by the word choice.

"What else could they be?" Ferdinando said, moving towards the body. "Is the woman that found the body still in your church?"

"Yes," Antonio nodded. He was an ageing, balding man, who'd spent his life in the service of the Church, the Archbishop of Siena, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, in that order, but the sight of this girl, the knowledge that there had been more like her, shook him. "She's being taken care of."

"I'll need to take her to see the Archbishop," Ferdinando said. "Usually we have the city guards seal off the crime scene immediately, no civilian presence at all. Indeed, had that woman not run into your church as she had, you never would have been apprised of the situation."

"But why all the secrecy?" Antonio asked, unable to take his eyes from the girls', who stared at him sightlessly.

"It would do the people of this city no good to learn that there is a murderous cult stalking young girls in the streets," Ferdinando said, his tone gruff.

"A cult!" Antonio exclaimed, horrified. "How can you know that?"

Ferdinando sighed. "What I tell you now, you share with no one. Absolutely no one, do you understand?"

"Of course," Antonio said, nodding.

"I tell you this because there are no leads, no way to identify the killers at all. There have never been any witnesses, we've never found a weapon, and none of their victims have survived," Ferdinando said, and he knelt beside the body, beckoning Antonio over. The big soldier's hands went to the girl's legs, and he slowly pulled up her dress.

Antonio saw that there were marks on her wrists and ankles, where she'd been tied down by rope. She'd clearly struggled against her bonds. The marks were darkly bruised and bloody.

"Go no further!" Antonio ordered as Ferdinando continued pulling up her dress. "It's bad enough that she violated so in life, but to continue that in death?"

"Speak no more, Father," Ferdinando chided as he lifted the dress to about the dead girl's mid-thigh. There was a wicked looking burn mark, the flesh around it charred black. It certainly wasn't a fresh mark, and Antonio realised with a start that she'd been branded.

"My God!" Antonio said, quickly blessing himself with the sign of the cross. "What in all that is holy is that?"

"The mark of our enemy, Father," Ferdinando said. "They have stalked the streets of this city for weeks, capturing young girls, torturing them, branding them, then murdering them and dropping them in the city to be found."

"But why?" Antonio said, unable to believe his eyes. The scar looked like a skull with long rams horns attached to its forehead, its jaw distended, its teeth jagged. The brand that made the mark would have been exquisitely crafted, but that image was certainly Satanic, the image of the Prince of Darkness himself.

Ferdinando, whose eyes had seen battle countless times, who had run enemy soldiers through with his sword, who had watched his friends slaughtered before his eyes, was not so affected by the sight of the dead girl; it helped, certainly, that he'd seen others just like her.

"Do we know who she is?" Antonio asked, but Ferdinando shook his head.

"No, we do not," the soldier said, pulling down the young girl's skirt and standing up. He straightened his tunic. "In the days to come, a family will realise that their daughter is not among them, and then they will come forward."

"I take that is what has happened with the other victims," Antonio said, sighing.

"It is," Ferdinando confirmed. Behind him, he heard shoes on the cobblestones of the alley, and turned to find a pair of city guards, uniformed and wielding short blades, arrived, no doubt alerted by Ferdinando's messengers. "I need you two to comb the area, look for any clues."

"Clues, sir?" one of them asked, but in response Ferdinando simply pointed to the dead body displayed on the cobblestones. The two men's eyes widened in horror at the sight, but they got to work.

"Come with me, Father," Ferdinando said, and beckoned the priest to join him as they headed away from the body and the working guards.

Antonio still couldn't quite believe what he'd learnt in the last few minutes, and he was still coming to terms with the excruciating moments he'd waited alone by the body of the dead girl while a messenger had run to alert Ferdinando. A murderous cult, loose in the streets of Siena? How many more would die? Every time he blinked, he saw that grinning, ram-horned death's head burnt into the dead girl's thigh.

"Father, when the inquisitor arrives from Rome, I want you to be his right hand. I want you to listen to everything he says, watch everything he does, and then report it all back to me," Ferdinando said.

It took Antonio a moment to understand what he was being asked. "You want me to spy on an Emissary of the Holy Father?"

"I want you to remember that you owe allegiances not just to Rome but to Siena and to Tuscany and to God," Ferdinand said reproachfully, glowering at the priest. "These men from the inquisition, they know nothing of God. Now, come. We must report to the Archbishop."


	21. Eppur si Muove: 2

**'Eppur si Muove'**

_2. Without Great Wonder_

* * *

><p>The church bells ringing out over Siena, competing, melodious chimes pealing into a clear blue morning, were joined by an ancient grinding, wheezing noise, the sound of the universe being torn apart and stitched back together.<p>

On the Piazza del Duomo, in the corner beside the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala, a strange blue box began to appear from thin air, slowly fading into existence as the light atop it glowed in time with its oscillating existence. Eventually, with a resounding finality, it appeared in the piazza, a solid presence, wooden and deep blue.

The box, garlanded with the words "Police Public Call Box", sat there for a moment, as the bells of Siena continued to chime.

Finally, the doors of the box swung open, and a tall, broad-shouldered man, dressed entirely in black, stepped onto the piazza, followed by a willow-thin young woman with curly light brown hair and pale, freckled skin. She wore a yellow sundress and a light, knitted woollen jacket. The man looked around, examining their surroundings.

"Pisa!" he proclaimed, throwing his arms up. "A beautiful city. Absolutely beautiful. You know, in all the universe, I think Italy has got to be one of my favourite ever places."

"That doesn't look like the leaning tower to me," the woman said, nudging her friend and pointing towards a tower that was decidedly less round and decidedly less leaning than the famous Pisan landmark.

"No," the man said, his face falling.

"That's oh-for-two now, Doctor," the woman teased, her lilting Australian accent tinging her words with gentle humour. "Where are we now, then?"

The Doctor turned to his friend, and offered her a smile. "Wouldn't you like to know."

"Well, I did just ask you the question, didn't I?" she said, throwing a gentle punch against his shoulder. "Or do you want me to figure it out for myself?"

The Doctor's face lit up. "You know what, Sophie, that sounds like an excellent idea."

Sophie Freeman lifted an eyebrow, somewhat confused, but decided to play along for now. "All right, then… well, that noise sounds like church bells. The sky is blue, and I'm breathing, and the buildings look sort of familiar, so I'm guessing that we're on Earth."

"Never make that assumption, Sophie," the Doctor said, "there are countless planets in this galaxy alone that resemble your homeworld, and many more that have been terraformed to resemble it. In this case, however, your assumption is correct. We're standing on Earth."

Laughing despite herself, Sophie nodded, and then went on. She sniffed the air. "Is that… horse manure?"

"Yes, it is," the Doctor said, grinning. He was beside himself with glee for some reason, and Sophie couldn't figure out for the life of her why. "It certainly is."

Sophie looked around, and she had to admit that wherever they were, it was impressive. Quite apart from the tower she'd pointed out to the Doctor, which loomed large over the city, there were tall, brick buildings all around them, and numerous narrow alleyways spidering out into the urban sprawl around them. They were standing in a wide, stone city square; banners hung from windows, brilliantly, splendidly coloured.

"Middle Ages," she said.

The Doctor nodded. "Close enough. Would you like me to put you out of your misery?"

"No," Sophie insisted, "let me get this. I remember that tower. I've seen it in a movie before…" she paused, as though searching her memory, before she exclaimed "Aha! Siena! Italy."

"Bingo!" the Doctor said, and help up his hand, which Sophie high-fived. "Good job. If I had to guess, I'd say we've landed in the 1630s or 1640s. Siena, like you've already correctly guessed. For centuries already Siena has been a centre of trade, science, politics. At this time the city is a part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany."

"Tuscany!" Sophie repeated. "I've always wanted to come to Tuscany!"

The Doctor nodded, and nudged Sophie, indicated that they should walk together. "It's a beautiful part of your planet."

"I can't believe we're in the seventeenth century," Sophie said, shaking her head as she looked around. "I've always loved Renaissance artists and scientists. I used to sit in the Art History section of the library at uni just to soak up the beauty of the prints on the walls of reading room."

"Well, my original plan was to meet Galileo when he was working in Pisa," the Doctor said. "Maybe we could have even witnessed his famous experiment, dropping the cannon balls from the tower. We're a few miles and a few decades off that little adventure, though. Maybe next time."

"So what's the plan?" Sophie asked, and she looked around. "And where is everyone?"

"You've already answered your second question," the Doctor told her.

Sophie froze, and thought back. "Church bells! They're all in church."

"Exactly," the Doctor nodded. "We've landed on a Sunday morning, I'm guessing. A very religious time and place, even with all the scientific advancements surrounding them. I'm sure there are a few non-Catholics and irreligious folk around, but not many of them would have risked being seen walking the streets during the middle of Mass. I'd say it's the summer, most likely June or July, judging by the ambient temperature. Doesn't feel much like an August. And I must say, that's unusual for me, arriving on a Sunday."

"You don't like Sundays?" Sophie asked, laughing.

"Not usually, no," the Doctor agreed, as they resumed their walk. "Boring, most of the time."

"Because everyone's in church?" Sophie teased.

"Some times," the Doctor admitted. "You know, we could still meet Signor Galilei, if you're interested."

"Really?" Sophie asked, perking up.

"Oh yeah," the Doctor nodded. "He would have been in Siena around this time. Under house arrest, of course, after having been accused of spreading heretical ideas and insulting the Pope."

"I'm really in Renaissance Italy, aren't I?" Sophie said, shaking her head in wonder. "I mean, I'm really back in time. An alien planet is one thing, but to be standing in history?"

The Doctor grinned. "It's great, isn't it?"

Sophie nodded vigorously. "It really is! New Tokyo was an amazing place, you know, before the bots and the crazy computer trying to kill us all, but this is just something else. I mean, all of this has happened. It happened long before I was born, centuries before I was even a twinkle in my mum's eye, and now I'm standing here. On a street in Italy. In the seventeetn century! I never thought I'd even leave Newcastle."

The Doctor smiled. "How does it feel?"

Sophie thought for a moment. She was equal parts nervous and exhilarated, her heart in her throat pounding at a thousand miles an hour, her stomach down around her ankles. The ground beneath her feet felt unreal, and her every nerve was tingling. At the same time, she felt perfectly at peace, relaxed and happy. It was unlike anything she'd ever felt. All she said was "Incredible."

The Doctor folded his arm over her shoulder and hugged her to him. "This is why I travel with friends, you know? What you're feeling right now… I've seen so much of this universe, Sophie. Alien skies and ancient times. I've bathed in the xtonic rays of a brilliant sun on the surface of a world of diamonds. I've done it all. But being with you, with people like you, experiencing history with you, makes it all seem new again."

Sophie grinned and hugged him back. "Thank you, Doctor. Look, I know I was a bit weird after we left New Tokyo, but I really am grateful."

"It's not always safe," the Doctor said, "and I'm sorry about that."

"I don't care," Sophie admitted. "It's better this, better running for my life and seeing strange things, then living that life I had."

"A life less extraordinary is not something to be sniffed at, Sophie," the Doctor said. "All the people living in this city have their stories to tell, their own adventures. Every single one of them will be long dead by the time I meet you in 2011, but that's besides the point; the point is, they lived. They mattered. You mattered, even before you met me, even when you were living that 'boring' life."

Sophie smiled. "Thank you, Doctor." They'd reached the end of the city square, which Sophie realised she'd be better off calling a piazza. "Okay, then, back to my first question. What's the plan here, Doctor?"

"Well," the Doctor said, looking around. "We could do the touristy thing, see the sights. Or we could just go for a stroll."

Sophie nodded. "Sounds all right to me, as long it's just a stroll."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" the Doctor asked, arching an eyebrow. "I hope you're not suggesting anything untoward."

She couldn't help but laugh in response to that. "Me? Suggesting something untoward? Never! All I'm saying is, I'd like it if we didn't end up fighting leeches or crazy computers or whatever else it is you do."

"I can't promise that," the Doctor said, "but I will try my best. Let's see if we can find Signor Galilei, shall we? I'm sure he'd make for an interesting conversationalist."

Sophie grinned. "Sounds fantastic!"

By now, they were walking down one of Siena's many tight, winding streets. It was shadowy, though by no means dark, and the church bells had quieted. The only movement came from the pigeons roosting beneath the eaves of the buildings that rose up either side of them, and cats slinking through the shadows. The lane had a distinct smell to it, an unpleasant one, but there was something so thrilling about walking the streets of the quiet city, just the two of them, that made Sophie grin ear to ear.

"You mentioned Galileo was under house arrest, Doctor," Sophie said, hoping to prompt him into a better explanation.

"Oh, yes," the Doctor nodded. "You see, he got rather embroiled in the controversy surrounding the theory of heliocentrism."

"Yeah, I know that bit," Sophie said. "The idea that the Earth revolves around the sun."

"The Pope, Urban VII, asked Galileo to write a book that would explore both sides of the argument, but he wasn't happy with the finished product," the Doctor explained. "He had Galileo arrested and tried, and under threat of torture had him abjure himself of all his works."

"Eppur si muove," Sophie quoted.

"'And yet it moves!'" the Doctor translated. "I doubt very much he would have actually said that during his trial. The Pope was already annoyed at him; that last little insult would have pushed the old man over the edge."

"It's a romantic story, though," Sophie countered. "Old Galileo, forced to recant everything he'd ever said, muttering one last bit of resistance against the religious establishment."

"Romantic, maybe, but not at all that factual," the Doctor said. "Galileo was–well, is–very much in favour of the religious establishment. He's a very religious man, a committed Catholic, and he never intended his work to go against the teachings of the church. Quite the opposite, in fact. He simply saw science and faith as two separate arenas for two separate areas of life, which, I suppose it is fair to say, was a fairly radical view for this time and place."

Sophie shook her head. "I'll be honest, Doctor, I've never been one for religious faith."

"Nor have I, for the most part," the Doctor agreed, "but every now and then I encounter something that'll make me question the things I believe. Quite apart from that, there's always something to keep faith in, I find."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," the Doctor said, and he smiled. There was something in his Cheshire grin that told Sophie he wouldn't be any more forthcoming than he had been already.

They'd reached the end of the street, which opened onto another piazza, this one centred around a rather impressive marble statue, behind which stood an enormous church, rearing up into the clear blue sky. From within they could hear the priest rumbling on, the chanting of the congregation echoing throughout the piazza. Sophie thought she could detect traces of incense on the air.

"Shall we go in?" the Doctor asked her.

"A Mass in Renaissance Italy?" Sophie said, grinning. "I'd love to!"

She started to head for the church, moving perhaps a little too quickly. She didn't see the young woman walking across her path until she'd almost run into her.

"Watch out!" the Doctor said, taking Sophie by the arm and pulling her back.

The girl was only a little younger than Sophie, about seventeen or eighteen, with curly, flyaway black hair tied beneath a bonnet. She was wearing a simple cloth dress, and was carrying a large basket full of red apples, each of them shining in the sunlight that filled the piazza.

"Oh, I'm sorry, signorina!" the girl cried, but Sophie waved off her apologies.

"Don't worry about it," Sophie said with an apologetic little smile. "It was my fault. I wasn't looking where I was going."

"Quite all right," the girl said, and Sophie realised she was avoiding looking either her or the Doctor in the eyes. "I should be on my way."

"Shouldn't you be in church? It is Sunday morning, after all," the Doctor said, suddenly adopting a chiding tone. At Sophie's eyebrow, arched in surprise at his attitude, he shrugged. "When in Rome, Sophie. Or Siena, as it were."

"Oh, no, signor," the girl said, shaking her head, "my family is not permitted to set foot in any church, for any reason whatsoever."

Sophie was taken aback. "Why's that?"

The girl looked surprised at Sophie's ignorance. "Because of our religion, signorina. My family is Jewish."

"Oh, cool!" Sophie smiled, and said to the Doctor, "You know, there's a synagogue not too far from my work back in Newcastle."

"Yes, but Jewish places of worship are few and far between in this era," the Doctor said, before turning back to the young woman. "I'm the Doctor, and this is Sophie."

"Francesca," the girl said with a smile of her own, looking the Doctor and Sophie in the eyes for the first time. "If I may be so bold, why aren't you in church?"

Sophie laughed, but the Doctor immediately answered "Oh, we're travellers. Just arrived from Rome."

The girl's eyes widened. "Rome?" she repeated, her voice hoarse. "Forgive me, signor. Signorina. I must be off. Good day to you."

With that, she was off, still cradling her basket full of apples. She disappeared down a side street and was gone. "That was odd," Sophie said after Francesca left. "Also, since when are we from Rome?"

"What was I going to say?" the Doctor said "That we've just landed in an transdimensional time ship on our way from New Tokyo? Or that you're an Australian? These people barely have any idea that Japan exists, let alone that an alien planet will one day be named after its capital, and Australia was only sighted a scant few decades ago. No one in Europe has any idea what it is, and it won't even be given that name for centuries yet."

"New Holland and New South Wales and all that, I know, I know," Sophie said, "but what about us being from Rome had her so spooked? You saw her when you said we were from Rome, she practically ran away."

The Doctor shrugged. "It may just be a matter of her religion."

"I can't imagine it's an easy time to be Jewish," Sophie said.

"They have it better here in Tuscany than they do in most of Europe, even in places that are relatively close by, like Rome, for instance," the Doctor said, "but no, it's not an easy time to be Jewish. Science and knowledge and wisdom are advancing all over Europe in leaps and bounds, but Italy is still the centre of the Catholic Church, and for all the learning and art it finances, the church is still, to say the least, conservative in many ways."

Sophie nodded. "I suppose so."

"Coming from a secular society like yours, it must be difficult to understand," the Doctor said, "but here, the church is everything. Even when he was lambasted and humiliated and called upon to tell the world that everything he'd argued for was wrong, that he was a liar, Galileo fought tooth and nail to be able to attend Mass again."

Sophie looked to the the church, its beautiful archiecture and its promise of a taste of history, not to mention the invitations of the chanting and the hint of incense on the air, beckoning her inside. Somehow, though, it felt hollow to her now.

"Look, Doctor, it's not that I don't understand faith," she assure him, "it's just that I don't share it. I would like to experience a Mass, you know, being back in time, but I also don't want to be a part of something like that… as though I were watching an exhibit in a museum. You know?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yes. Yes, I do."

Sophie thought for a second. "Wait, so Galileo won't be at Mass now, then?"

"No, I suppose not," the Doctor said, nodding. "Even after he was granted the right to hear Mass and take the sacrament, that right was limited to religious holidays…" he trailed off as he understood Sophie's meaning. "Ah, I see! You think we should go and visit him now."

"Well, if everyone else is in church," she said, smiling, "isn't it a great opportunity for us to go and say hi?"

"It is indeed," the Doctor agreed. "If I remember my history, and I always do, Galileo would be a guest of the Archbishop of Siena at this point."

"A guest?" Sophie asked. "I thought you said he was under house arrest."

"Oh, Sophie," the Doctor chided, his tone friendly, "if you're going to travel with me, you'd better become familiar with all the various euphemisms for 'prisoner'. You'll be hearing quite a lot of them."

Sophie laughed, remembering their encounter with Security Division on New Tokyo. "I'll bet," she said.

The Doctor went on. "Besides, 'guest' isn't too inaccurate a term. The Archbishop, Ascanio Piccolomini, was a supporter and admirer of Galileo. By all accounts, he was very comfortable here."

Sophie nodded, impressed as ever by the length and breadth of the Doctor's knowledge. Still, she had a point to get across and she wasn't going to let him distract her any more than he had. "All right then, where do you think we'll find the Archbishop?"

"On a Sunday morning? Church. Of course. But it's not him we're looking for, it's his house, which, as you've pointed out, is the house in which our soon-to-be friend Galileo is languishing under house arrest. By the way, you might want to put the hood of your jacket up."

"Why?" Sophie asked, confused.

"Because it wouldn't do for you to be seen running around on a Sunday without your hair covered."

Sophie sighed as she pulled the thin hood of her jacket onto her head. "Okay, fine. Where's old mate's house, then?"

"Right there," the Doctor said, pointing across the piazza to a rather grand old home, three stories high, with a high metal gate across the front doors, a pair of brightly-uniformed, pike-wielding guards stationed outside.

"How do you know it's his?" Sophie asked, but the Doctor had already started walking towards it.

"It's big enough, it's grand enough, and there's something important enough inside to station two armed guards at the entryway," the Doctor said as Sophie struggled to keep up.

Just a few moments later they'd arrived at the house, but one of the guards stepped forward to bar their way.

"Don't mind us," the Doctor said, "we're just here to visit Signor Galilei."

The guard beheld the pair of them with something like morbid fascination in his eyes. "No one is permitted to visit the prisoner without the express written permission of His Excellency, Ascanio Piccolomini, the Archbishop of Siena."

"Ah!" the Doctor said, and began to pat the pockets of his coat, mumbling under his breath "Written permission, written permission…"

The guard tensed, obviously unimpressed by the Doctor's antics.

"Here we are," the Doctor announced, handing the man a small leather wallet, inside which Sophie knew lay the psychic paper, one of the Doctor's favourite toys. It enabled the Doctor to show anyone who saw it whatever he wanted, or, in the absence of any express direction from him, whatever they needed to see in order to allow him to progress unhindered. "Written permission."

The guard opened the wallet, and his face fell as he read it. He looked to his comrade, and briefly showed the man the psychic paper. The other guard looked just as shocked.

"Of course, sir, of course," the first said, going to open the gate. "Right this way."

Sophie and the Doctor were ushered through, and up the stone steps through the gaping, impressively carved stone doorway. The guard joined them, opening the inner door for them and letting them into a rather majestic foyer. With a high ceiling and surprisingly well lit, the foyer featured a rather grand rug on the floor, and religious frescoes on all four walls. A staircase of most impressively carved wood led up to the second story, and a corridor led further into the house.

"If you'll wait here, signor e signorina, I shall go and collect Signor Galilei," the guard said, and he disappeared up the stairs.

"What did the paper say we were?" Sophie asked the Doctor, surprised by the sudden shift in the guards' attitudes.

The Doctor checked it. "Special envoys of the Pope, it seems."

Sophie let out a long, low whistle. "Ritzy."

"Yes, well," the Doctor sniffed, "don't ruin our newfound secret identities with your Australian vernacular, if you please."

"Spoil sport," Sophie teased, as the guard reappeared at the foot of the stairs.

"If you'll please follow me," he said, "Signor Galilei awaits you in his chambers."


	22. Eppur si Muove: 3

**'Eppur si Muove'**

_3. Neither True Nor False_

* * *

><p>Galileo Galilei had spent a life in search of the answers to questions posed by the world around him. He had left the matters of God to the church, and he had followed their directives in any way he could, but his hunger for knowledge had always been the stronger when it came to that hunger's competition with his thirst for the loving embrace of the Lord.<p>

Now, on aching knees not used to spending long periods of time kneeling on stone floors, he held his hands together and recited the sixth psalm, the first of the seven psalms of penitence. Part of the punishment set for him by the inquisitorial board that had stripped him of his rights as a baptised member of the church required him to recite all seven daily; a penitent man prostrate before God, begging forgiveness for the audacity of his sins.

"_Domine ne furore tuo arguas,_" he began, though the holy words of the Scripture felt as ash on his tongue. He could draw no hope from them, none of the promise of God's grace that he had always been able to feel before. "_Me neque in ira corripias me._"

He bowed his head, and tried to clear his mind of the doubt that plagued him. He was reminded of the Saviour, dying on the cross outside Jerusalem, begging for salvation, not just for Him but for all mankind. Galileo was reminded of how He had asked why he was so forsaken as to be allowed to continue to suffer in such a way. He hoped God would forgive him this vanity, but he wondered why he, too, had been forsaken so; never in his life would he have rebuked the word of God. Never would he have sworn allegiance to any God but He.

"_Miserer mei Domine quoniam infirmus sum sana be Domine quoniam conturbata sunt ossa mea_," he continued, but decided he could go no further. Hauling himself to his feet, Galileo thought the world was going to fall away from as he stood; he was not a young man, and moving too quickly now seemed like a fool's errand, yet he did so all the time.

"Perhaps that is your problem, old man," he said to himself in Italian, dropping the Latin of the psalms. "Perhaps you move too quickly."

The world was not yet ready for the Copernican model of the universe. Perhaps they were up in northern Europe, in the heathen lands of the British and the Dutch or even in Germany, but here in Italy perhaps such questioning was best left for other, later minds.

He was lucky that the church had seen fit to intern him with his old friend and supporter, the Archbishop of Siena, but he still yearned to leave the walls of his imprisonment. It was infinitely better than the prison where he'd been held and threatened with torture those long months ago, but not by much; though his confines were certainly more luxurious, the proximity to the churches of Siena, and the knowledge that he would never again stand shoulder to shoulder with his fellow Christians to receive the body and blood of the Christ chilled him to his very bones. It was a constant reminder of his shame, an eternal torture for a man who had always been pious.

There came a knock at his chamber door, and he called out "Enter!"

The key turned in the lock and one of the house guards entered. "Signor Galilei, you have visitors."

Galileo's ears weren't what they had once been. He blinked in surprise. "Visitors, you say?"

"Yes, signor," the guard nodded. "They carry credentials from His Holiness, the Pope, sir."

Galileo's eyes widened. He had long ago considered Urban VII to be a friend, a true supporter of the search for knowledge, had even personally visited him to congratulate him on his ascendancy to the papacy, but politics had, as always, gotten in the way. Once he'd published his now-banned dialogue, Galileo had been betrayed by some of the cardinals, who had convinced Urban that Galileo had been mocking him in that very same dialogue.

"Show them in!" Galileo said, looking about his chambers. They were cluttered, as he had many possessions but limited space in which to store them, and perhaps too dusty, but he hardly had time now to clean them. "You must show them in at once!"

"Of course, signor," the guard said, slipping back out. Galileo heard, much to his displeasure, the door being locked once again. He would never attempt to escape, but just knowing that he was truly trapped here was disheartening enough. Regardless of any intentions on Galileo's part to the contrary, and though they treated him with dignity and respect, the guards always made sure to never leave an opening for him.

He was wearing a rather plain robe, a white cap tied with string beneath the chin and a simple pair of slippers. Hardly clothes in which he could receive a visitor from the pope, of course, but he had the excuse of having been prepared to spend the day in quiet introspection, prostrated before the judgement of God.

His beard had grown long, untamed, since he had long ago lost the will to keep it as immaculately groomed as he once had.

Moments slipped by before he heard the key being inserted into the lock. Galileo Galilei drew himself up to his full height, a not inconsiderable stature, as the door swung open to permit his guard and two strangers entry.

Galileo was taken aback. He'd expected a cardinal, or a bishop, or perhaps even another investigating priest like the one that had arrived a few days before to investigate the murders that had plagued the city for the last month, but instead he saw an incredibly tall man dressed in a rather strange-looking black coat, followed by a woman whose yellow dress was entirely too bright for a Sunday, and entirely too short for anybody of any modesty whatsoever.

"Signor Galileo Galilei of Pisa, may I present the Doctor, an emissary of His Holiness, Pope Urban VII, and his companion, Sophie."

"An honour," the man, the Doctor, said, stepping towards Galileo with his hand outstretched for a shake. "I have heard so much about you."

Still somewhat surprised, Galileo shook the man's hand. "Then you have me at a disadvantage."

"It really is a pleasure," the woman said from behind the Doctor.

"Signorina," Galileo said, inclining his head in a way that would be considered genial enough. "Forgive me for the condition in which I greet you."

"Considering your circumstances, signor, no forgiveness shall be given, for none is required," the Doctor said, looking around, taking in the sights of the room. "Impressive lodgings you've secured for yourself."

"Impressive lodgings His Holiness has secured for me," Galileo corrected.

The girl, Sophie, was staring at him in awe, and the guard was still perched awkwardly beside the door.

"You may leave us," Galileo told him, and the man quickly exited. "You'll forgive me, Doctor, but I was not expecting any visitors today. In fact, I was not expecting any for a long time to come."

"We were in the neighbourhood," the Doctor said, "and we simply had to stop by. Isn't that right, Sophie?"

"Oh, definitely," the girl said, grinning like a mad woman.

The main chamber of Galileo's rooms, in which the three of them stood, was a wide stone room, centred on a cosy hearth. There was an open window looking down onto the piazza, which was quite conspicuously barred, and two of the walls were lined with bookshelves, each of them crammed with volumes, quartos and pamphlets. Crates of his personal effects and scientific equipment were piled about, and the only furniture in evidence was a small writing desk against the far wall and a trio of simple chairs facing one much larger and more comfortable. A door way led off to his sleeping chamber.

"I must say," the Doctor said, still looking around, "it's incredible to meet the man responsible for the _Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems_."

Galileo winced. "I'll thank you not to mention that."

"Oh, but why?" the Doctor protested. "I've read it. It's magnificent! You've read it, haven't you, Sophie? A spirited, lively debate between scholars on the relative merits of heliocentric and geocentric models of the solar system."

"Can't say I have," Sophie admitted; her attention had been caught by an instrument of brass placed in the farthest corner from the window, which had already begun to collect dust and was festooned with spiderwebs. "Is that yours?"

"My telescope," Galileo said. "I have not seen fit to glimpse the heavens since arriving here."

"Why ever not?" the Doctor asked.

"You've heard of the Dialogue, Doctor," Galileo said, looking to the man. "Since you come with the permission of His Holiness then you must also have heard of the trial. My shaming, my dishonour. My veritable excommunication from the church. This is the pain that viewing the stars through that thing has brought upon me; I simply wish no more of it."

The girl, Sophie, looked genuinely disappointed. "But you championed the search for scientific truth all your life."

Galileo beheld her, and he felt the sadness in his heart that had been his one constant companion over the last months come to the fore. "What use is scientific truth without the love of God, signorina? What use is knowledge without grace, without the promise of heaven?"

"But you're Galileo," Sophie said, shocked. "Your name is synonymous with the struggle to overcome religious ignorance, the pursuit of knowledge above all else."

Galileo sniffed, hurt by her words. "Be that as it may, signorina, my belief in God is what has sustained me in this lifetime, as it will, I pray, in the next. I seek knowledge not to belittle Him or His servants, and I hope that you will maintain the same standard."

She at least had the decency to look contrite. "I apologise, Signor Galilei."

He sighed. "There is no need to apologise. Alas, you are correct. Because of the Dialogue, because of the controversy, I will forever be known as the man who stood against the Pope and the true servants of God."

The Doctor reached out, and touched the old man on the shoulder. "Look, you may not be expecting to hear this from two emissaries of Urban, but Sophie and I are on your side. We don't see you as shamed or dishonoured, and we certainly don't see you as excommunicated. In fact, we're both long-time admirers of your work, your achievements in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, physics."

"God's world is a source of endless wonder," Galileo agreed.

"Indeed it is," the Doctor said, casting a look at his companion. "We understand that you weren't trying to deny the existence of God, or oppose the truth of His word, but merely attempting to unravel some of the mysteries He left for us to investigate."

"Exactly!" Galileo exclaimed, and suddenly the old man felt full of energy. He could have bounced around the room, were he not so certain that would have finally ruined his legs forever. "You understand!"

"We do," the Doctor nodded, and looked again at his friend. "Don't we, Sophie?"

She sighed, and smiled, as though she truly, at long last, understood something. "Yeah. We do."

Galileo smiled, and led them to an unopened crate closer to the window. "Come, come. You seem very interested in the Dialogue. If you came to acquire a copy, I'm afraid I will be unable to help you. The Dialogue was banned, and rightly so, but not all of my resources in regards to it were destroyed."

"Oh?" the Doctor asked, as Galileo went to retrieve a crow bar that had been resting against the stone beneath the window. The old man wedged it into the crate's lid, and with an almighty heave that belied his age ripped it free. Inside, amongst the hay used to cushion the contents from being jostled, the Doctor could make out a hint of glinting brass.

"Here," Galileo said, reaching in to pull something out, "come and help me."

The Doctor was only too happy to oblige, and together he and Galileo pulled free a great brass contraption. They set it on the stone floor, and as the Doctor stepped back, he realised he was looking at a primitive map of Earth's solar system.

"Sophie," he said, he breath catching in his throat, "would you get a load of that."

Sophie, for her part, was gaping in astonishment. The contraption featured six spheres, each mounted on independently moving arms, centred around a great brass ball; the sun, and the six then-discovered planets. There was a small arm at the base of the third sphere, atop which a very small orb turned; Sophie realised that that was the Earth and the moon. Four such arms swung beneath the fifth of the spheres.

"The Galilean moons," the Doctor said.

"It brings me pleasure to hear you refer to them in that way, Doctor," Galileo said, "but they are not mine."

"You're too modest, Signor Galilei," the Doctor demurred. "Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa. The first heavenly bodies confirmed to orbit an object other than the sun. Aside, of course, from Earth's own moon."

"That is," Galileo corrected gently, "if anything at all orbits the sun."

Sophie frowned. "Oh, come on. You know that the Earth revolves the sun, just like the rest of the planets. This model illustrates your theory."

"Oh, signorina, that theory is not mine," Galileo said, "it belongs to Copernicus. I merely suggested it as an alternative Aristotle's model of the universe. I made a mistake in doing so."

"Do you really believe that?" Sophie asked.

Galileo arched an eyebrow at the two of them. His suspicions were aroused now; were they spies, sent here by the church to test the resolve of his abjuration? "Did you two come here to assist the Archbishop?"

"Assist the Archbishop?" the Doctor repeated. "Assist him with what?"

"With the murders," Galileo said.

The Doctor's eyes widened, and Sophie repeated quite loudly "Murders?"

"Perhaps I have said too much," Galileo said, turning away from them. "I myself am not supposed to know about them, but they're all the guards have been talking about the last weeks, and it was hard to miss the arrival of an inquisitor from Rome."

"What murders?" the Doctor asked.

Galileo hesitated. "Before the inquisitor arrived, I was allowed free movement within the house. I think perhaps he suspects me of some involvement, and so I am kept in these rooms, but I know enough of the details."

"Start from the beginning," the Doctor said. "Tell me everything you know."

Galileo didn't know why, but he felt he could trust this mysterious man and the woman that had joined him; he detected none of the false interest he had received from those of his opponents' men, who sought to trap him into some form of heresy or another. Instead, in the eyes of both of these people, he saw only admiration and respect, and it was a heady cocktail for an old man, may the Lord forgive his vanity.

Quickly, in as much detail as he could, he recounted for them both the story of the murders; the six bodies that had been found in Siena, all of them branded with their throats slit, all of them with ligature marks around their wrists and ankles. All of them, he was quick to note, had been young women, and the nature of their deaths, so horrific and so violent, and so many in such a short space of time, had been enough to bring an inquisitor from Rome.

"But surely you must have known that," Galileo said, cocking an eyebrow. "Having come here as an emissary of the Holy See."

The Doctor and Sophie shared a look. "You see, Signor, we are travellers. Ambassadors at large for His Holiness, and since we just arrived in the area, we thought it best to avail ourselves of the opportunity to hold audience with such an august personage as yourself," the Doctor explained; Sophie barely suppressed a snort at his oratorical fireworks.

"You do me honour, sir," Galileo said, "but I must be straightforward with you: I may be confined to these rooms, but I hear much. Neither the man from the castle who was originally assigned to investigate these killings, nor the inquisitor from Rome, have had any luck at all finding the killers. It is most bizarre; I have heard of not one single witness, nor one scrap of evidence. I have heard, however, that the brand used to mark the victims is most grotesque."

"How so?" the Doctor asked.

"It is in the shape of a man's skull, but the skull is horned," Galileo said. "It sounds, to me, to be evil. Quite evil."

"Six young girls?" Sophie said, her voice full of disdain. "Damn straight it's evil."

"I think I'll need to talk to this inquistor," the Doctor said, straightening himself up. "Perhaps Sophie and I can be of some assistance."

As reluctant as she was to get involved here the way they had on New Tokyo, Sophie was beginning to learn that this was exactly what it meant to be the Doctor, and to travel with him; fighting monsters, in whatever form they might take, and saving lives. On New Tokyo, they'd saved tens of thousands of lives, but it had come at a cost. Sophie still saw Chihiro's broken body, slashed by a crazed maintenance bot's plasma torch because Sophie hadn't been fast enough to stop it. She nodded to the Doctor, signalling her agreement to go along with whatever he had planned.

He smiled his thanks to her. All at once, the church bells started ringing again, perhaps even louder than before.

"You won't need to wait long," Galileo said, "he and the Archbishop will be returning from Mass very soon."

"Signor," the Doctor said, offering Galileo his hand once again, "it was the greatest of pleasures to meet you. We'll be seeing each other again soon, I'm sure."

* * *

><p>Despite the fact that it was just a short walk from the cathedral to his residence, His Excellency Ascanio Piccolomini, the Archbishop of Siena, always chose to ride his carriage the length of the distance, to avoid dirtying his Sunday vestments on the streets of Siena. That Sunday, as his driver took them the three hundred metres from the cathedral to the rear entrance to his home, he was joined by a tall, imperious looking man, wearing the black and purple robes of a Vatican priest.<p>

Compared to the pomp and grandeur of the Archbishop's own attire, the man's dress was positively understated, his demeanour was much more domineering than the Archbishop's own. If it were up to Piccolomini, the man would have been defrocked for his insolence, excommunicated and sent to Egypt to live out his days amongst the heathen Muslims.

Luckily for Father Alessandro del Campanili, however, his fate was most decidedly not up to Piccolomini; instead, he was under the personal ecclesiastical protection of His Holiness himself.

Unfortunately for Piccolomini, Father Alessandro knew it.

"We should confine that heretic to a prison," he was saying, and even without any clarification Piccolomini knew exactly who he was referring to.

"Signor Galilei is a guest in my home, and a guest he shall remain until His Holiness decides otherwise," Piccolomini responded. "He is a good man, an honourable man, and I will not hear you call him a heretic in my presence again. Is that understoof?"

Alessandro, who had inherited a perfectly Roman aquiline nose, stared at Piccolomini. "Do I need to remind you who I serve?"

"You serve God, Father," Piccolomini reminded him. "As do I."

"We're here, Your Excellency!" came the voice of Piccolomini's driver as the carriage came to a stop. They'd travelled through the back gate, just off the piazza, directly into the courtyard. As Piccolomini stepped out with the help of his servant, he looked up at the barred window overlooking the courtyard, and his heart hurt knowing that his friend, the dear Galileo Galilei was trapped up there.

Father Alessandro stepped out behind him, and as he made his way towards the house, he saw one of his guards was already standing there, waiting for him.

"Your Excellency," he said, bowing his head. "Signor Galilei had visitors during your absence."

"He what?" Alessandro explained from behind them.

"Guests, Father," the guard repeated. "They came to the front gate, bearing a signed, sealed letter of invitation from the Holy Father himself. I welcomed them in, and they conversed with Signor Galileo for some time."

"I left strict instructions that no one was to talk to him," Alessandro said.

"And I left strict instructions that no one was to talk to him without express written permission from myself," Piccolomini countered. "These guests apparently carried written instructions from the Pope himself, Father, unless you contend that your authority outweighs that of the Holy See."

"Of course not," Alessandro responded.

"These guests asked to see you, Your Excellency, as soon as they could," the guard said.

"They said it had something to do with the murders."

"Take me to them right away!" the Archbishop ordered.


	23. Eppur si Muove: 4

**'Eppur si Muove'**

_4. Senses and Reason_

* * *

><p>The Doctor and Sophie met the Archbishop of Siena in a small meeting room, opulently decorated and very comfortable. The Archbishop himself looked resplendent in his robes, and suddenly Sophie felt very underdressed. After they got introductions out of the way, the Doctor showed the Archbishop, and a rather shifty looking priest that had joined him, the psychic paper.<p>

"Well," the Archbishop said, clearly impressed, "everything seems to be in order."

The priest, however, didn't look so easily swayed. "If I may be so bold, what are two emissaries of the Holy Father doing here, of all places?"

"Siena has long been a centre of learning and politics," Sophie said, deciding to take initiative. The Doctor offered her a bemused expression in response, but he was clearly impressed, so he decided to run with it. "We decided to take a brief sojourn here, and we learnt of the murders, and thought we'd see what we can do to help."

"Sojourn?" the Doctor teased, _sotto voce_.

"We are certainly honoured to have you here," Piccolomini said, "but I can assure you that Father Alessandro here has the situation well in hand. Isn't that true, Father?"

"It is, Your Excellency," the priest said, inclining his head.

"Listen," the Doctor began, "Alessandro, is it? Sophie and I are not here to tread on any toes. We've heard that there has been no evidence found at the scenes of the crimes, no witnesses to any of the murders. The girls just appear in the streets, dead. It so happens that I have experience investigating such crimes."

"Experience?" Piccolomini asked, lifting an eyebrow. "What sort of experience?"

"Your Excellency, if you'll permit me," the Doctor said, "have you heard of the Calvierris of Venice? They were vampiric monsters praying on the young women of the city, until I ended the threat they posed."

Alessandro looked troubled, but Piccolomini seemed impressed. "Is this the nature of your work for the Holy See, Doctor? Eliminating problems such as this?"

The Doctor considered. "Yes, I suppose one could say that."

"We have only one piece of evidence," Piccolomini said, an admission to which Alessandro reacted with discomfort. "Show them the drawing."

Alessandro, rather reluctantly, went to a cabinet, and removed from it a piece of parchment he handed to the Doctor, who in turn passed it to Sophie. She was rather taken aback by the image; it looked like a human's skull, its jaw terribly distended to fit in a number of jagged-looking teeth. The most striking feature, though, were the curved ram's horns jutting from the dome of skull.

"That is the mark that has been branded into the flesh of the victims," Piccolomini said. "I have had one of my priests, a man named Father Antonio, investigating its origins, but we have so far learned nothing of it."

"May I ask how you came to learn of the murders?" Alessandro asked.

"Galileo told us," Sophie answered without thinking, and she realised her mistake even without seeing the Doctor wince.

Alessandro's expression grew dark. "Of course he did."

"Don't be ridiculous, Father, he meant no harm! He obviously thought these people could assist you," Piccolomini chided.

"It is outrageous, Your Excellency, that he has been left up there with all of that equipment of his," Alessandro said, and the Doctor got the distinct impression that this argument was a well-worn track between the two of them. "Who knows what dark experiments he may be conducting even as we speak? He is behind this whole thing, I assure you!"

"Be quiet, Father," Piccolomini said. He looked back to the Doctor and Sophie. "What do you make of the symbol?"

"It looks familiar," the Doctor said, "but only insofar as this imagery is familiar. The fangs, the horns, the death's head; it's all your stock standard devil imagery. The intricate work that went into making this brand, however, if this drawing is an accurate representation of the mark, is what's really unique about it."

"Indeed," Alessandro sneered. Sophie was really beginning to dislike the man.

"May I meet with your Father Antonio?" the Doctor asked. "Perhaps he and I can compare notes."

* * *

><p>The Doctor and Sophie were impressed by the size of the library of Archbishop Piccolomini. The room was crammed with shelves, each shelf full to overflowing with beautiful, leather bound hand-painted tomes; science, theology, philosophy, history. To Sophie, it was almost like heaven, and it would have been the perfect place to just spend a couple of days flicking through the surrounding volumes, were it not for the grave situation they'd suddenly found themselves thrust into.<p>

There were a few writing desks in the room, one of which had been colonised by a small man wearing a plain brown robe. He had collected a rather startlingly pile of texts, and his hands were splotched with ink from his scrawled notes.

Alessandro led the way, announcing their presence for the priest. "Father Antonio, allow me to present two servants of His Holiness, the Doctor and Signorina Sophie."

"A pleasure to meet you," Antonio greeted them. He showed them his ink-splashed "You will forgive me if I don't shake your hands."

"Of course," the Doctor said, nodding at Antonio by way of greeting. "Have you had any luck?"

"None at all," Antonio said, indicating the pile of books and papers he'd been sifting through. "All I've had to go on is the image of the mark left on each of the slain girls."

"Ah, yes," the Doctor said, stepping over to the man's desk, and quickly looking through some of his papers. "Fairly standard symbolism."

"That's what I thought," Antonio said, joining him. "An image of the devil, of evil, which has become constant over the last millennia."

The Doctor was impressed. "More than a priest, Father Antonio?"

The old man was surprised. "I beg your pardon, sir?"

"No offence was meant," the Doctor assured him, holding his hand out in a placating gesture "You seem to have some learning about you. Did you study more, shall we say worldly, before taking your vows?"

"Indeed I did, sir," the priest said. "I was an undergraduate at the University of Padua, when I first heard the calling of the Lord."

The Doctor heard Sophie make a noise behind him, but he thought it best to ignore it. "Ah, good to hear. Signor Galilei, I believe, has done some work at the University of Padua…"

Antonio tensed. "Yes, well, perhaps he might have done."

The Doctor saw that he'd caused some offence there, and so decided to leave it. He believed that Antonio genuinely had no further information on the killings to share. "Do you have a picture of the brand, Father?" the Doctor asked, and when Antonio dutifully produced a hand-sketched copy of the image the Archbishop had shown them earlier, the Doctor thanked him.

Alessandro, he noted, had been watching them closely the entire time. The Doctor indicated to Sophie that he'd like to talk to her privately.

"What do you think it is?" Sophie asked as they studied the image together. "I mean, aside from the obvious."

"What's obvious about it?" the Doctor asked in response.

"Well, it's the devil, isn't it? The horns, the teeth, the skull. It certainly seems demonic."

"Indeed," the Doctor nodded. "This symbolism is fairly standard throughout Europe at this point in history, and indeed is standard across the galaxy throughout all history. I met something that looked pretty much identical to this once. Big, nasty fellow he was."

"You met the devil?"

The Doctor considered. "Well, that's how he introduced himself to me. Not sure if I believe it. No, I think this has more… Earthly origins. Still, something about the composition of the image doesn't sit right with me. I tell you what. Why don't you and I get out of here and head back to the TARDIS. I can scan the image through the databanks and we can have a look around Siena on the way."

Sophie nodded. "Sounds all right to me."

"Good," the Doctor said, and immediately turned to Antonio. Alessandro had been standing nearby the Doctor and Sophie throughout their hushed conversation, but the Doctor guessed that he'd been just outside of earshot, despite his best efforts. "Thank you very much, Father. My assistant and I are going to depart your company now, and see if we can't dig up some more information using our own sources."

"And what sources would they be?" Alessandro demanded, speaking over Antonio.

"A private collection, Alessandro," the Doctor said, not even bothering to keep the disdain from his voice. "I'm sure you'll understand."

With that, he and Sophie left the Archbishop's library.

* * *

><p>The Doctor and Sophie stepped back out in the Siena piazza, and the sunshine of the Sunday afternoon. The streets were much busier than they had been, and Sophie found herself staring at the citizens of the city, some dressed in resplendent, almost garish outfits, replete with gold thread, fancy boots and enormous hats, while others wore simple, reserved garments. It suddenly hit her, again that she was standing in seventeenth century Italy, that Shakespeare had been dead for less than twenty years.<p>

She gripped the Doctor's sleeve suddenly, and said to him "Thank you, Doctor."

"I'm sorry?" he said, his eyes clouded with thought.

"Just, I don't know, thank you. For this," Sophie said, grinning.

"There's a crazed murderer stalking the streets, and you're thanking me?" the Doctor said.

Sophie shrugged. "It seems like par for the course for you, but that's not what I meant. We both know how this is going to end; you're going to find the murderer, and stop him or her or it. I'm saying thank you because, for the first time in my life, I feel like what I'm doing matters. I feel like I'm standing in an extraordinary place, doing extraordinary things."

The Doctor smiled. "You're welcome. You are. Now, come on, let's get back to the TARDIS."

Sophie nodded, and followed the Doctor as he led the way into the crowd. It was busier than Sophie thought it would have been; she was weaving through knots of people, and the Doctor was drawing ahead at a steady rate. It was becoming harder and harder to see him through the crush of people, and she suddenly felt something beneath her feet.

She tripped, and barely managed to catch herself before she sprawled across the stones of the street. Looking down, she saw a red apple; her feet had crushed it, spread the pulp across the pavers.

"Damn it," she said, and when she looked back up, she couldn't see the Doctor anywhere.

* * *

><p>"Signor," came a voice from behind the Doctor, gruff and somewhat harsh.<p>

"Yes?" the Doctor asked, turning to find himself facing a rather broad, tall man, not quite as tall as the Doctor, with a well-trimmed goatee and moustache. He looked rather well-fed, and he wore a rather simple cloak; his skin was tanned, and his hands, the only part of his body visible aside from his face, was criss-crossed with scars.

"You just came from the Archbishop's house, did you not?" the man asked, studying the Doctor every bit as intently as the Doctor had been studying him.

"Yes, I did," the Doctor said, and he realised Sophie had gotten lost in the crowd. He sighed inwardly, but decided to maintain his composure until he knew who this man was and what he wanted.

"Did you meet with the inquisitor from Rome? Father Alessandro?"

The Doctor was somewhat surprised by this question. "Yes, I did. A rather unpleasant man, all in all."

The man smiled ruefully. "Indeed," he said, and cast a look around at the crowd, none of whom seemed to be listening. Indeed, the Doctor and the man who stood before him were anomalies on the street; they seemed to be the only people who weren't moving hurriedly about. "Did you discuss the killings?"

The Doctor blinked. "What do you know about killings?"

"Don't play coy with me, signor," the man said. "I am Ferdinando di Martinelli, and I was the investigator from the castle sent to discover the murderer."

"You didn't discover who was behind the deaths, though, did you?" the Doctor said, not unkindly. He glanced over the man's shoulder, into the crowd, to see if he could find Sophie.

"No, I did not, to my shame," Ferdinando said. "Once the inquistor arrived, I was ordered to return to my duties, organising the city guard."

"But you can't do that, can you?" the Doctor said. "You can't ignore the murders."

Ferdinando blinked. "No. I cannot."

The Doctor grinned. "Good. Then you and I could be of some help to one another. I'm the Doctor. What can I do for you?"

"Have you been allowed to join the investigation?" Ferdinando asked, and when the Doctor blinked, he nodded. "Good. I need… I need eyes. I need ears."

"You want a spy," the Doctor said, cutting to the chase. "Why?"

"Because I fear that the church may be involved in the killings," Ferdinando said, "and if that's the case, then Father Alessandro will find the guilty party or parties and whisk them away to the Vatican for trial, or worse: will allow them to escape punishment, to save face."

"A dangerous theory," the Doctor said. "If someone heard this, Father Alessandro for instance, or the Archbishop, you would get into a lot of trouble."

"Yes, I would," Ferdinando agreed, "but I am alone in this investigation, and I need help. If I can find the guilty party before Alessandro, I can lock them up in the castle. They can be tried and punished here, in Siena, under Tuscan law. Justice will be done."

The Doctor nodded. "So what is it you'd have me do?"

"Keep an eye on Alessandro," Ferdinando said. "If there are any leads, tell me. I can be found at the castle, or at Giorgio della Bosca's taverna, which is just off Piazza del Campo."

"Why there?" the Doctor asked.

"Better to stay close to the centre of the city," he explained. "Most of the bodies have been found near the Piazza, within the shadow of the Torre del Mangia. I have rented a room there."

The Doctor nodded. "All right. I have just one question: why don't you trust Alessandro? It's not just him that's working on this investigation. A local priest named Antonio is helping him."

Ferdinando was about to answer when a scream split the air.

* * *

><p>Sophie had decided to step away from the crowd, and try and find a way to get a better view of the area. Most of the houses had high windows or balconies; maybe she could sweet talk a few of the owners?<p>

She noticed another apple on the street, kicked to shreds by the constant foot traffic. It was strange, she realised; there was another, and another. Something about them seemed familiar, and she was reminded of Francesca, the Jewish girl she'd met earlier that morning.

She began to follow the trail of dropped fruit, and noticed that it led into an alleyway in a part of the street that was far less crowded than the piazza outside the Archbishop's house.

Remembering her experiences in New Tokyo, cornered in an alley and menaced by a pair of robots determined to kill her, Sophie hesitated. Then she heard a scream.

She tasted the bitter tang of adrenalin at the back of her throat, and felt her heart beat faster. She ran into the alley without thinking; she knew enough to know that that scream had been laden with absolute terror. It was the scream of a young woman in desperate fear for her life.

"Francesca!" Sophie shouted when she saw the young woman, who had been attacked by a figure, grunting with a man's voice, swathed in a dark cloak. Her basket had fallen, its apples spilled across the pavement. She was fighting him off with every ounce of ferocity and energy she could manage, her hands curled around his wrists. Sophie saw that he was wielding a wicked-looking knife, it's blade shaped almost like a lightning bolt.

"Help!" the girl cried, and the man in the dark cloak turned to see Sophie. She couldn't see beneath his cowl. Looking around for something with which to fight him off, she barely had a moment before he gave Francesca a hard shove. She hit the wall of the building looming over the three of them, and slumped to the ground as the man jumped towards Sophie.

He swept his knife hand down in an arc, but Sophie managed to avoid the slash, and instead threw a punch at his stomach. Her attack did nothing, and he came at her again. A wicker basket smashed against his head, and he stumbled. Francesca was on her feet now, swearing and hurling apples at him.

He turned back to her, and he readied his knife for a strike that would no doubt kill her, when Sophie heard a familiar voice from behind her.

"Stop!" cried the Doctor, and she turned to see him and a man she didn't recognise sprinting towards her. The man was brandishing a short sword.

The cloaked figure seemed to recoil and then fled, ignoring Francesca and Sophie in his desperation to get away. He didn't waste a second, and by the time the Doctor and his new friend reached them, the man was already gone.

"Are you all right?" the Doctor demanded as soon as he reached her, concern rife in his tone.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sophie asked, before turning to Francesca. "What about you?"

"I am well enough," she answered, her voice shaking. The other man had gone to help her get back up to her feet. She was bleeding from a small cut in her forehead. "Thank you, Sophie."

"No, thank you," Sophie insisted, "I would have been done for if you hadn't thrown your basket at him."

"You know these girls?" the man said to the Doctor.

"Yes," he answered. "Girls, this gentleman is Ferdinando. He works with the city guard. Ferdinando, this is my companion, Sophie, and this young lady is Francesca. Speaking of which, you really must get that cut seen to."

Francesca touched the wound above her eye, then examined the blood on her fingers, as though surprised it was there. "I'm bleeding," she said simply, before staggering again. Ferdinando caught her, and the Doctor and Sophie rushed to her.

"Unconscious," the Doctor said. "What happened?"

"He threw her against the wall," Sophie explained.

"Are you sure it was a man?" Ferdinando asked, supporting Francesca's passed out form.

"Positive," Sophie said, "but I didn't see his face. You saw: he was wearing a dark cloak."

"Did he say anything?" the Doctor asked, but Sophie shook her head. "Was there anything else unusual about him?"

"His knife," Sophie said. "It was strange. Crooked. Not curved or anything, just jagged, like a lightning bolt. I suppose you could say it zig-zagged."

"Sound familiar?" the Doctor asked Ferdinando, but the large man shook his head. He told Ferdinando to lay Francesca down and support herself; kneeling beside her, he began to root through the pockets of his coat.

"What are you looking for?" Sophie asked as she joined him.

"Smelling salts," the Doctor said. "Nasty stuff, but I really do need to find out if she saw anything that could help us find her attacker."

"What salts?" Ferdinando asked, but the Doctor ignored him.

A moment later, Francesca's eyes flickered open. "Doctor," she said quietly, and she swallowed. "What happened?"

"You passed out," the Doctor told her gently. "You're okay, Francesca. I need to know, did you see anything noteworthy about the man that attacked you? Did you see his face?"

Francesca shook her head. "No face," she said quietly.

The Doctor and Sophie shared a look. "What do you mean?" the Doctor asked the girl; the blood was now flowing freely from the wound in her forehead, and the Doctor was holding a handkerchief to it to staunch the flow.

"He was wearing a fitted mask," Francesca said. "A black mask."

"Onyx," the Doctor said to Sophie, "or obsidian."

"Or it could just be painted black," Sophie countered.

"Point," the Doctor conceded. "Did you see anything else, Francesca?"

The girl moaned, and shook her head. She was crying now, Sophie realised, and her heart went out to her. "Please, sir, I just want to go home," she said.

The Doctor nodded, and along with Ferdinando, he helped her to her feet. "You two help her get home. I'll come and meet you there."

Sophie was about to protest but Ferdinando beat her to it. "Where are you going? We need to get after that bastard as soon as we can."

The Doctor nodded. "We will, but our first responsibility is to make sure that Francesca here is safe. I'm going to do some research of my own, to see if I can track down the source of the brand."

Sophie shook her head. "You can't, Doctor."

The Doctor looked at his companion, and cupped her chin in his hand. Kissing her quickly on the forehead, he said "You'll be fine, Sophie. You will. I take it you've seen Ferdinando's sword?"

Sophie laughed. "Okay, fine. It's just that when we split up, things tend to go south."

The Doctor nodded. "This is true. Look, I'm just going back to the TARDIS quickly."

"The TARDIS?" Ferdinando interrupted.

"A small library near the Ospedale di Santa Maria," the Doctor answered him quickly. To Sophie, he said "I promise I won't be long."

He was about to leave when suddenly he remembered something, and turned back to Sophie, pulling something from his pocket and then pressing it into her palm. "What's this?" she said, opening her hand to discover a small silver key.

"The key to the TARDIS," the Doctor explained, and at her beaming expression, quickly said "I'm sorry we can't make more of a ceremony about it, but we are in a bit of a rush. We'll pop the champagne a little later on, okay?"

Sophie just grinned and nodded, and with that, the Doctor departed.


	24. Eppur si Muove: 5

**'Eppur si Muove'**

_5. Some Conclusion in Their Minds_

* * *

><p>When the Doctor got back to the TARDIS, he was almost relieved to be back in the mysterious, gorgeous chamber at the heart of the dear ship that was his oldest friend. He had folded the picture father Antonio had given him, and tucked it into the pocket of his coat. Wasting no time, he pulled it out even before he'd reached the console.<p>

He pulled the scanner screen towards him, and reached towards one of the myriad pieces of equipment attached to the TARDIS console. This particular object was a small reading device, able to scan an image and then put it through the TARDIS database. The Doctor held up the drawing of the brand that had been used to mark each of the victims. With a small noise, the scanner screen came to life, displaying a digitised image of the drawing. Gallifreyan text spun around the image, and the Doctor knew the TARDIS was currently searching its rather large database.

A moment later, the results came back.

"Five million results?" the Doctor barked. All the usual suspects were there; the Draconians, the Daemons, the Kaled God of War, and of course the Beast of Krop Tor. "You're worse than Google."

The TARDIS' constant background hum changed pitch for a few moments, registering her displeasure with the comparison he'd made.

"All right then," the Doctor said to himself, and he began to manipulate controls on the console, "a change of tack."

Activating the TARDIS sensors, he set them to scan for alien energy signatures within the area surrounding Siena. Something about that image, about the nature of murdered girls' discovery, screamed alien to him; it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. After centuries upon centuries of travelling, he had learnt to trust his instincts.

It only took a moment for the TARDIS' twelve-dimensional scanners to analyse every particle, every stray electron, within twenty miles of the city. There was one result, but it was faint. Indeed, the Doctor realised, looking at the readouts, it was likely the scanners just needed recalibrating.

"Hmm," the Doctor mused to himself. He fed the results into the databank, and began to cross-reference it with the information it had spat up in response to his initial search. A few moments later, there was another result. The Doctor blinked in surprise. "The Vrigillians? Really?"

The image on the screen matched the picture of the brand; a distended, skull-like head, with curling, long horns similar to those of a ram. The most striking of the Vrigillian's features, however, were its eyes, Utterly, mystifyingly human, so generic and every day as to be especially grotesque when considered against the backdrop of the rest of the creature's hideous, broken visage.

The Vrigillians resembled any number of demonic creatures the Doctor had encountered, but their appearance wasn't what surprised. What surprised him was how incredibly, well, ancient they were. As old as the Racnoss and the Carrionites, older; they had been vestigial and largely unknown even during the Dark Times. That the energy signature from one of their pieces of technology should be present in Siena in 1633 seemed impossible.

The Doctor's blood ran cold. The Vrigillians were dangerous. Beyond dangerous. Immediately, he tracked the source of the energy signature. The TARDIS pinpointed the signature, which was transitory at best, an echo at worst, to a position somewhere beneath the Piazza del Campo. He ran a geological scan then, and determined that there were catacombs extending beneath that part of the city for quite some ways.

He considered taking the TARDIS directly into the catacombs and finding the source of the energy emissions right away, but there was no room to accurately manoeuvre the TARDIS in such a small space, and there was no telling what the device emitting that signature might do if, or when, it detected the intruding time ship. The Doctor suddenly saw, in his mind's eye, an image of Siena being consumed in alien hellfire.

He ran one final scan, tracking down the key he'd given Sophie. The TARDIS told him that she was in a small building, obviously a residential structure, on the outskirts of the town with three others, two male humans and one female. Evidently, she and Ferdinando had successfully gotten Francesca home. The pitch of the background hum shifted once again; the same queasy noise the TARDIS had made when the Doctor had first brought Sophie aboard.

The TARDIS pointedly noted the massive, though subtle, temporal distortions that surrounded Sophie's life signature. The Doctor sighed. He gently patted the console, and said, as comfortingly as he could, "I know, I know. Something's wrong with her. I'm trying to figure out what it is, I really am."

The TARDIS flashed an image of the newspaper article it had discovered a few days before, just after the Doctor had invited Sophie to travel with him. The article declared, quite irrefutably, that Sophie had died on 2 March, 1996: the same day her parents had been killed in a car accident. The Doctor turned off the scanner, took a deep breath, and folding the image, which he was now almost certain depicted a Vrigillian, back into his pocket, he went to catch up with his friends.

* * *

><p>Francesca, though still a little weak, recovered quickly and led Ferdinando and Sophie back to her house. As they walked through the streets, Sophie couldn't help gaping at everything that surrounded her; donkeys and goats and chickens mingling with citizens of Siena, old and young, rich and poor. Some of them were dressed in brilliantly-coloured clothes, and others wore simple garments. Eventually, they reached Francesca's house. It was two stories tall, made of stone, and looked much larger and more comfortable than the houses surrounding it. Francesca knocked on the front door.<p>

"You can't just go in?" Sophie asked her new friend.

Francesca shook her head. Her wound had stopped its copious bleeding, but her bonnet was soaked, and her injury had drawn quite a few stares during their walk to her house. Ferdinando, though, had stayed protectively close. "My father is… paranoid these days," she explained, shooting an uncomfortable glance at Ferdinando.

Ferdinando had studied Francesca intently, and suddenly some kind of recognition burst into life on his face. "The last victim," he said, but before he could say any more a small grate in the door opened.

A pair of eyes looked down at them, and a few moments later the door opened after a bolt was slid back.

"My Francesca," the man behind the door said, wrapping his daughter in a hug. "What has happened to you?"

"She was attacked, signor," Ferdinando said. "This young lady and I responded to her screams."

"Attacked," the man repeated, his voice hollow. He wore a simple dark robe, and seemed full about the frame. He also wore a long beard and a yarmulke.. "My dear, you are lucky. You are so, so lucky."

"I know, abba, I know," Francesca said, burying her face into her father's robe. Sophie could see the sobs shaking her shoulders. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have gone out, today of all days."

Ferdinando was studying the pair of them. "You are Jews," he said simply, and Sophie blanched.

"Yes we are," the man responded, his voice firm. "We are. We are allowed to live here by the decree of the Duke of Tuscany."

Ferdinando waved his hand. "I don't care if you're Jewish or Christian or pagan or worship the sun."

"Oh," the man said, seemingly taken aback. He held Francesca tighter to him, and then looked to Sophie. "Are you hungry? Either of you? If you helped my Francesca, the least I can do is shelter you for a while and give you what food I can."

"That would be appreciated," Sophie said, and her stomach rumbled conspicuously. She was starving

Ferdinando, however, still studied the family. "Do you have any other children, signor?"

The old man's expression grew steely, and Francesca's sobbing renewed. "I had another daughter, signor. She has been gone a week now. I fear she is dead."

"Fear no more," Ferdinando told him. "She is dead."

Sophie couldn't believe the way the lumbering Italian man had said that, and Francesca began to positively howl. Her father just blinked once, saddened, perhaps heartbroken, but he maintained his composure.

"How do you know?" he and Sophie asked at once.

"Perhaps it would be best if I explained inside," Ferdinando said, as Francesca's father let them in.

* * *

><p>The catacombs beneath the Piazza del Campo were dank, twisting and cramped; they reeked of rot, decay and death mixed with the smell of smoke and inhabitation by vermin. Guido wound his way through the tunnels, going by memory as he picked his way through the dark. He never lit a torch anymore; the Priestess had demanded that they learn the path to the Sepulchre by heart, and he'd long ago mastered the track.<p>

A few minutes passed before he entered the Sepulchre, and as always he was awed by the cavernous space hewn into the rock beneath the city of Siena. None of his fellow cult members was present, except for the Priestess herself. She was an ageing woman, tall and unbowed by the passage of time. She exuded a raw power that chilled Guido to the bone, and he wasn't sure she was entirely human any more. The Sepulchre was lit only by candles, and was centred around the Grand Altar, an outcropping of stark black rock that seemed to absorb all light that touched it.

A lit brazier was set beside the Altar, which Guido knew housed the brand they used to mark their victims. Likewise, not far from the altar, was the table of stone upon which they placed their victims, sacrifices to their Dark Lord. The blood from their slit throats, long since darkened and clotted, was splattered around the Sepulchre. Guido had not yet had the pleasure of drawing the wicked sacrificial knife, which he carried with him now, across the flesh of a victim's throat, and now he doubted he ever would.

He had failed to secure the Jew girl, the sister of their prior victim, as the Priestess had ordered him to. He had been foolish enough to be have been caught in the act by not one but three witnesses. He would be lucky if he survived this night.

As Guido approached, the Priestess was looking into the last, and in many ways most extraordinary, of the Sepulchre's features. The Basin was filled with liquid not quite water and not quite molten metal; it reflected images of the world outside, and it was through this that the Priestess identified the cult's victims. She said that the Dark Lord Himself provided the visions, and Guido had no reason to doubt it.

"You failed," she said, her voice preternaturally high.

"Yes, My Lady," Guido said, falling to one knee automatically. "I was discovered. The girl fought and screamed."

"You did not subdue her," the Priestess said, turning back to him. She survived him with her cold gaze, completely unimpressed by his excuses. "You failed utterly, Guido, and in doing so you have cost our Master a chance to be free of his bonds."

Guido's guts twitched; he was terrified.

The Priestess drew closer. "Do you have the Master's mask? His blade?"

Guido nodded, and took the mask from his face. He handed it to the Priestess. The mask was an incredible object, which conformed to the face of whoever wore it; it could make those who wore it all but invisible to anyone who was not actively looking for them. Then he handed over the jagged blade that he had intended to use to threaten the Jewess into submission.

The Priestess examined the objects. "They appear undamaged. You are lucky, Guido, for the Master has made clear that this potential victim was not to his liking. He has chosen our next victim for us already."

Guido was shocked. "Who… who, madam?"

The Priestess returned to the Basin and beckoned Guido forward. She showed him the image reflected there. A smiling young woman, with light brown, curly hair and large green eyes.

"She was one of the witnesses to my attack on the Jew!"

"Oh, I know," the Priestess said, "and earlier today she visited our agent in the Archbishop's household. You and he will work together to capture both her and the Jewess."

"Both?" Guido asked.

The Priestess grinned. "Why deny our master of the blood he so sorely craves? Find these girls, Guido. Bring them to me. You will slit the throat of the Jewess when the time comes."

Guido almost grinned at the prospect. "And the other girl, milady?"

"Sophie Freeman is mine."

* * *

><p>Ferdinando and Sophie helped Francesca, weak on her feet already thanks to the wound to her head and now an emotional wreck having learnt of the death of her sister, to a bedroom on the lower floor of her father's house. Her father, meanwhile, led the way, and Sophie knew that he was desperately fighting off tears. They lay Francesca on the bed and as her father set about tending her wound, Ferdinando explained how a woman had alerted Father Antonio to the presence of his daughter's body near Antonio's church.<p>

Francesca's father, named Luigi, had been haunted by nightmares of the horrific fate that may have befallen his daughter ever since he had gone missing, but he couldn't believe the horrible truth. His Miriam, branded and throat slit, her body dumped in an alleyway.

He knew, too, that the church would never turn her body over to him, and even if they did she would not be able to be buried in consecrated ground, her body having been defiled as it was. As he made sure his living daughter was comfortable, he invited Sophie and Ferdinando back to the hearth chamber. He and Ferdinando built a small fire, as Sophie explained the cover story she and the Doctor had adopted.

Though Luigi was uncomfortable having an agent of the pope in his house, especially considering, he said, the goings on in Rome, he said that he would welcome Sophie because of the aid she'd rendered to his daughter in her hour of dire need. As if on cue, there came a knock on the front door.

Luigi went to check who it was, and returned with the Doctor.

After introductions, the Doctor took Sophie off to one side. "Did you learn anything?" Sophie asked him.

The Doctor nodded. "I'm pretty sure I know what we're dealing with."

"What is it?" Sophie asked.

The Doctor looked back towards the hearth, where Luigi was talking to Ferdinando about his daughters. He noted that tears were shining on the old man's cheeks, and the Doctor's heart went out to him. He knew that the best thing he could do now for Luigi, for Francesca, for Miriam, for all the other victims and their families, and for the people of Siena as a whole, was to find the Vrigillian and its compatriots for, the Doctor realised, it must have compatriots to operate the way it did.

"The Vrigillians are an ancient, powerful race," the Doctor explained. "Some of them shared traits that most humans would consider demonic. Billions of years ago they were among the most feared life forms in the galaxy."

"Billions of years ago," Sophie said, blinking at the thought of the sheer number of years. "Jesus."

"If only," the Doctor quipped, sighing. "They were warriors. They conquered and destroyed vast swathes of the universe, which was a lot smaller back then. Everyone knew about them, everyone feared them, and then one day they vanished. They just disappeared from the universe."

"Why?"

"No one knows," the Doctor said. "Some legends say they were all massacred by the species they'd enslaved during an uprising. Some legends speak of a disease. Still others say that the Vrigillians had expanded as far as they could, and that they'd grown tired of fighting the same enemies, so they froze themselves in time, spread themselves throughout the galaxy in small interstellar craft they called Sepulchres."

"So what's happening here, then?" Sophie asked. "I mean, okay, so if one of these Vergellians or whatever landed on Earth in one of their ships, what happens next? What's the plan?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Maybe there was some sort of timer, designed to wake them up at a certain point in history. Maybe this one overslept. Maybe humans woke it up early."

"And the killings?" Sophie asked.

"Ah," the Doctor said. "Now that's where it gets interesting."

It was at that point, before the Doctor could explain further, that Francesca came back in. Her eyes were red, her cheeks puffy, but she'd regained some of her colour after her rest.

"Welcome back, Francesca," the Doctor said with a smile. "How are you feeling?"

"Like my heart has been ripped from my chest, Doctor," the girl said simply, her expression stony. The Doctor offered a sympathetic smile, and her resistance cracked slightly. "I am feeling better. I really cannot thank you enough, Doctor, for the way you helped me this afternoon."

It was then that Sophie noticed that the light coming through the windows of the room was growing steadily pinker, a reddish hue suffusing the air; the sun must have been setting. It took her a moment to come to terms with the fact that she'd spent a day in history, and it seemed she was about to spend a night here, too.

"Any time, Francesca, really," the Doctor assured her. "If you'll excuse Sophie and I, Luigi, we really need to find ourselves some lodgings for the night."

Luigi instantly got to his feet, leaping from his seat by the fire. "I will not hear of it, Doctor! You helped save the life of my daughter today, and the least I can do is offer you somewhere to rest for night."

"And speaking of," Ferdinando said, pushing himself up from the seat he'd occupied across from Luigi, "I must be going, too."

Luigi thanked him again for his help, and offered to show him to the door. As they passed the Doctor, Ferdinando shot him a significant look and the Doctor nodded once in response. Sophie decided to note that for later. A moment later, Luigi returned.

"Francesca really saved herself," Sophie told him. "She's a crack shot with a basket."

Luigi smiled a little here, though the expression was touched with the unimaginable sadness of a father that had lost a child. "It's important that our daughters learn to defend themselves, I find."

Francesca saw her father's sadness and went to him, embracing him.

The Doctor and Sophie shared an uncomfortable glance. The Doctor stepped forward, and said to Francesca "I'm very sorry, but I need to ask you about your attack. You seemed dazed afterwards. Do you remember anything else?"

Francesca frowned, but Luigi spoke before she could. "Excuse me, Doctor, but shouldn't my daughter take some time to recuperate?"

"You're right," the Doctor nodded, and indicated to Sophie that they should take a few moments. Confused, Sophie decided to go with it, but the Doctor turned back to the father and his daughter. "It's just that Sophie and are facing a ticking clock. The killer was denied his victim today. Every scrap of information I can get will help us find and catch him, but every minute I don't have that information is a minute he gets closer to his next victim."

"I do remember something," Francesca said, stepping away from her father. "The man, that mask he wore. It looked smooth and shiny, like stone, and when I looked at it… when I looked at it I just felt compelled to do what he was telling me to do. I wasn't sure I could even see him."

"Then why did you scream?" Sophie asked.

Francesca shrugged. "Because, well, I think I knew what had happened to Miriam. I was scared. Terrified. I thought he was going to kill me, and I guess I was right."

The Doctor nodded. "You're a tremendously brave young woman, Francesca. Can you remember anything else?"

The girl shook her head.

Luigi stepped forward. "If the two of you are going to stay the night, perhaps I'd better show you around."

Luigi's house wasn't anywhere near as large or impressive as the Archbishop's, but it was the comfortable home of a well-off merchant. Most of the ground floor was dominated by a warehouse that still housed some of the carpets Luigi explained had been the lifeblood of his business; he'd imported carpets from all over the world, through the ports of Venice and Naples, and sold them to the rich of Tuscany. He'd retired, though, when his heart grew weak and after his wife died, though still occasionally sold carpets gifted to him by his old trading partners.

Finally, he brought Sophie and the Doctor to the guest bedrooms upstairs. They thanked him, and as he set about to get Francesca to make an evening meal, Sophie stepped in. "Let her grieve, signor. I can cook a mean pasta, and I'm sure the Doctor will help."

Luigi looked shocked for a moment. "I'd almost forgotten what happened to Miriam," was all he said, and the Doctor patted him comfortingly on the back.

"The pain will fade in time, my friend," the Doctor assured him.

"Have you ever lost a child?" Luigi asked bitterly. "How could you possibly understand this loss? This pain?"

"My home was destroyed, Luigi," the Doctor said, and Sophie heard that same tired pain she'd heard when he'd told her of his homeworld, the long lost Gallifrey. "Everything I knew was lost. My family is gone. I understand your loss and I understand your pain. Let Sophie and take care of you and your tonight. Tomorrow, you can start to sit shiva for your daughter."

Luigi nodded, and thanked the Doctor, heading back out of the room to find Francesca, so that they could be together in their grief. With that, the Doctor and Sophie headed for the house's kitchen, to put together a meal for their new friends.


	25. Eppur si Muove: 6

**'Eppur si Muove'**

_6. Through a Dark Labyrinth_

* * *

><p>Dawn lit the sky over Siena in brilliant hues of gold and orange, tinged with pink; already, the newborn day was warming up, promising another typical day of Tuscan summer. The house belonging to the Jewish carpet trader came awake slowly; from his position in a nearby empty house, Guido kept a watch on it. He knew where the four people inside were located; the father and his daughter on the lower floor, the visitor and Guido's new target, whom the Priestess had called Sophie Freeman, one the upper floor.<p>

His fingers curled around the dagger, and he reached up to touch the mask that clung to his face. He had spent the night awake, watching the house for any sign of motion on the part of the inhabitants. He would wait. He would wait for his opportunity to strike, to take the women, hypnotise them using the powers of the mask and drag them back to the Sepulchre.

He imagined dragging the knife across the lily-white throat of the girl he'd attacked the day before. He imagined her blood flowing from her severed carotid, feeding the Altar of the Master.

Sophie's sleep had been disturbed by dreams of the man that had attacked her. Whenever she shut her eyes, whenever sleep came upon her, she saw his black-masked face, his wicked blade; she heard the sizzling of her flesh as the brand was pressed into her skin. Worse still she saw the image of the Vrigillian, a raw-fleshed demon rearing up, roaring, spittle dripping from its fangs as it loomed over her.

When she finally, properly woke up, early morning sunlight streaming in through the window of the room she'd been given by Luigi and Francesca, she resigned herself to being weary for the rest of the day. She was wearing a simple white night dress leant to her by Francesca, and her room was a simple affair, with a bed, an empty dresser and a small cabinet. The bed was surprisingly comfortable, actually, and Sophie reckoned that it must have been used by travelling merchants that had been guests of Luigi, back when he ran his import business.

Dawn over Siena was every bit as spectacular as she would have expected. The city, stone spires and church steeples, spread out around her as solid and real as anything. The Doctor hadn't told her much more about the Vrigillian, besides giving her a basic rundown of its appearance, and she was desperate to learn more; the Doctor seemed reasonably confident that the alien energy signatures he'd detected were linked both to the murders and the attack on Francesca she'd managed to thwart, and she wanted to know what they'd be doing to solve the problem.

She slipped from her room, and moved down the hall to the room that the Doctor had been given. She rapped gently on the wood.

"Come in, Sophie," he said from the other side, and she was surprised he'd been able to identify her as she stepped inside. He was sitting in a chair facing the room's sole window, which offered a view similar to Sophie's; his bed appeared untouched, and Sophie realised that he must not have slept.

"How did you know it was me?" she asked, and she went to sit on the bed.

"Who else would it have been?" the Doctor said, and he turned to her. Frustratingly, despite his obvious lack of sleep, he looked just as fresh as he had yesterday.

Sophie was about to mention Luigi and Francesca, but she decided to drop it. "Fine."

"Are you all right?" the Doctor asked her, meaning the question genuinely.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sophie said, "just confused. I need you to explain this to me, all right?"

"Explain what?" the Doctor asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"Explain to me what's happening here, in Siena. Explain the Vrigillians to me, the killings, how it all links together," Sophie said. "I mean, I know you've figured it out. So, go on. Explain away."

"In a big clump of expositional dialogue?" the Doctor teased. "You're no fun."

"People have died, Doctor," Sophie said, deadly serious. "Francesca very nearly joined them. Explain to me exactly what's happening here. Please."

The Doctor sighed, his shoulders slouching ever so slightly. "The Vrigillians were an ancient warrior species, right? When they were overthrown, they fled. Their very best soldiers and commanders were put into pods and sent speeding out across the universe. One of these pods must have landed here, in Siena, millions of years ago."

"Before it was Siena, you mean," Sophie corrected.

"Before humanity was anything but a future possibility written into the genes of a few forest-floor dwelling proto mammals," the Doctor said.

"How could anything live that long?"

The Doctor smiled. "Ah, well. That's where it gets interesting. The Vrigillians that loaded themselves into the pods weren't actually alive."

"I'm sorry?" Sophie asked, blinking.

"Well, they were. Only, they weren't. You see, they knew that certain of their enemies could track down their organic forms to anywhere in the universe. Instead, they transferred their consciousness into stone."

"Stone?" Sophie asked.

The Doctor's grin widened; he was beaming now ear to ear. "It's genius. They'd figured out how to overlay their minds into a crystalline matrix, and then wrap that matrix in stone. Moving, active stone."

"Black stone?"

"How did you know?"

"Deduction," Sophie said, flashing a grin of her own. "I mean, I didn't get a good look at that guy's mask yesterday, but from the sounds of it that theory just kind of, you know, fit in with the whole thing."

The Doctor shook his head, but carried on with his explanation. "My current theory is that the black stone craft crash landed here on Earth, millions of years ago. Slowly, rock and sediment built up around it, and it remained buried until the inhabitants of Siena built their catacombs. They unearthed the ship, or part of it, and then Vrigillian aboard would have begun communicating telepathically with certain people."

"Which people?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Most human beings have some limited psychic potential. Maybe the Vrigillian would have summoned a particularly psychically astute to it… maybe one just stumbled upon it."

"And the killings?"

"Ah," he said, raising a finger. "Now that's where it gets really interesting. Part of what made the Vrigillians so effective as warriors was their rather impressive ability to draw strength from the blood of their opponents."

"Like vampires?"

"Not really," the Doctor said. "Vampires hunt their prey, and actually feed off the blood. The Vrigillians absorb the psychic energy in the blood, rather than the blood itself."

"Like, draining the life force or something?" Sophie asked for clarification.

"Yes," the Doctor said, nodding and smiling, "except not at all. But that explains the killings, doesn't it? Forget the fact that they're all young women. That's just incidental on the part of the killers, I think. No doubt the Vrigillian psychically transmits the identity of the victims it feels would be the tastiest to whoever's orchestrating these killings, and they just pick the easiest."

"Then why young women?"

The Doctor stood, and walked to the window. "Virgins have magical powers, didn't you know?"

Sophie snorted. "I guess I'm safe then."

"Don't be so sure," the Doctor said before he turned back to her, raising his eyebrow as though he were about to ask her a question, but for whatever reason he decided better. "There's a man in a house not far away. The door has been boarded up, most of the windows are shuttered. My guess is that he's a spy working for either the Archbishop or Father Alessandro."

"Where is he?" Sophie asked, about to head for the window to see what the Doctor was talking about.

He waved her away. "No, no, I don't want him to know that I've noticed him. It wasn't hard to make out movement in the shadows of a house that's supposed to be empty."

"Why would the Archbishop or Alessandro want to spy on us?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Maybe they suspect us. Maybe they fear us. There is another alternative, though."

"Oh?"

The Doctor's expression grew dark. "He's the same man that attacked Francesca yesterday. If he is, that means he'll try and attack her again. I want you to stay here and look after her. And her father, for that matter."

"Me? What about you?"

The Doctor, who Sophie noticed was still wearing his trademark dark coat, stood. "I'm going to see Galileo again. He seems to have noticed a lot from his cosy little jail cell in the Archbishop's house. Maybe he's noticed something."

"And then?"

"I'm going to find Ferdinando here, and have him help you keep an eye on Francesca and Luigi," the Doctor said, heading now for the door to his room. "And then I'm going after the Vrigillian,"

"You know where it is?" Sophie asked, standing and going to follow him.

"Yesterday, I managed to track down the source of the Vrigillian energy emissions to somewhere underneath the Piazza del Campo," he explained.

"You're not going alone," Sophie insisted.

The Doctor smiled, and reached out to her, pulling her into a bear hug. "Oh, Sophie Freeman. Thank you."

"For what?" she asked, somewhat bemused as she hugged him back.

He let her go, and just smiled at her again. "For you."

With that, he turned and left, the door to his room slamming behind, and despite the warm embrace they'd just shared, Sophie felt something cold pricking at the skin on the back of her neck. She had the distinct feeling that she was being watched.

* * *

><p>It didn't take the Doctor long to find his way to the taverna Ferdinando had nominated as his current place of residence. The hearth in the taverna itself was cold, the hall empty, but the Doctor let himself in with the help of his sonic screwdriver and climbed two dark staircases up to where Ferdinando's room was located. Knocking on the door, the Doctor found the man was already awake and dressed.<p>

"How did you get in here?" he demanded, and the Doctor merely lifted an eyebrow, fixing the man with his most intense gaze.

"Does that matter?"

Ferdinando blinked. "I suppose not. Do you have something to report?"

The Doctor grinned. "That I do, Ferdinando. You see, someone spent the entire night watching Luigi and Francesca's house. I have left Sophie there to watch over them, but I'd rather she not remain there alone."

"You want me to go and join her?" Ferdinando asked, somewhat taken aback by the request.

"If you wouldn't mind," the Doctor said, lightly.

"Whatever for?" Ferdinando demanded. "You said you would aid me, Doctor, and I refuse utterly to submit to your orders."

The Doctor sighed. "Ferdinando, please. This is bigger than you can possibly imagine. Just go and help my friend. Make sure she is safe. I promise you, the people behind the killings will be brought to justice, and even more importantly, the killings will be stopped. Today."

Ferdinando agreed, and as they descended to the ground floor of the taverna, they agreed to meet again at Francesca and Luigi's house within a few hours, once the Doctor had consulted with Galileo. With that, Ferdinando set off to join Sophie and the Doctor travelled through the slowly waking city streets to the grand house of the Archbishop.

This time, he didn't bother trying to con the guards at the gate, but instead slipped around to the back of the stately manor, where the small stables were located, beneath the servants' quarters. Again using his sonic screwdriver, he managed to slip inside, and made his way to the small set of rooms in which Galileo was living out his days in exile.

"Doctor," came a voice from down the hall. The Doctor turned to see Father Antonio peering out of his library. "What are you doing here?"

"I just need to ask Signor Galilei some follow up questions," the Doctor assured him. "Although, come to think of it, Father Antonio, has any of your research pointed towards the Piazza del Campo?"

Antonio looked stricken for a moment. "No. Should it have?"

"Yes," was all the Doctor said, before quickly adding "but don't worry about it. Just a hunch I'm operating on at the moment. Listen, don't tell Father Alessandro I'm here."

"Of course not, Doctor," Antonio said, nodding once as the Doctor slipped up the hall towards the rooms where the Archbishop's houseguest lived. Antonio watched him go, before quickly heading out of the house, not bothering to conceal the glee on his features.

* * *

><p>Finally, the Doctor reached Galileo's rooms. There was no guard stationed there now; perhaps the man was still asleep, and the Archbishop saw no reason to keep an old man under guard over night. Again, with a quick zap of his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor opened the door, and was surprised to find Galileo was also awake.<p>

The old man sat bolt upright in his chair as the Doctor entered. "What are you doing in here?" he demanded, his voice loud.

The Doctor motioned for him to be quiet and shut the door behind him. He went over to Galileo, and sat in the chair across from him. The old man watched him intently, clearly concerned by his appearance. "This will perhaps come as no shock to you, Signor, but I am not an agent of the Pope. Far from it. He doesn't like me much at all. Not many of them have."

Galileo gaped. "What are you talking about?"

The Doctor sighed, wondering how he should explain it. "I'm a… traveller. I go to places and I meet people, and I came to Siena to meet you. I didn't know anything about the killings until you told me about them, and I think there's a reason you told me. I think you suspected that I'd be able to help."

"Of course I did," Galileo said, "because I thought you were an investigator sent by Urban!"

"Does it make any difference whether or not I was sent here?" the Doctor insisted. "I'm here to help, Signor, and you know that. You can see that."

"I thought myself a good judge of character," Galileo said, "long ago. Before I was betrayed by a man I counted amongst my friends and relegated to the dust pile of history, a forgotten man of forgotten works."

The Doctor sighed; he heard the resignation in the Pisan's voice. "You don't need to be forgotten, Signor. You have a chance to help me today. You have a chance to help put a stop to these murders."

Galileo blinked. He paused, before saying "How?"

"I need to know if you've heard of anything, well, odd in the city, centred around the Piazza del Campo," the Doctor asked, modulating his tone to emphasise the urgency.

"The Piazza del Campo?" Galileo repeated. "It's the largest of Siena's piazzas, the centre of the city's social, religious and commercial life. Lots of things happen there."

"I know, I know," the Doctor said, "but there are catacombs beneath the city, correct?"

"Yes," Galileo said, slowly. "I haven't lived in Siena long, Doctor, and I am not a native of this city."

"No," the Doctor agreed, "you're not. But you've read about it, surely? Most of the books in this room are histories of this city. You've been reading them, I'm sure, and your mind, Galileo, is incredible. If there was something in there, you would have picked up on it. So tell me. Was a strange type of black rock ever found beneath the city while the catacombs were being excavated?"

Galileo thought for a moment, before saying "Yes, I believe so."

Instantly, he was on his feet, and his knees creaked as he crossed the room and removed an old, hand-lettered leather bound tome from the shelves. "Here is a record of the construction of the catacombs."

He placed it on a crate and flicked it open, as the Doctor joined him. Galileo ran his finger down a marked page, reading the cramped letters, his mouth moving silently beneath his bushy beard. "Here!"

The Doctor gently nudged him aside, and read the passage he'd pointed out. A pyramidal black stone had been found in a naturally occurring cavern deep beneath the Piazza del Campo. "Oh, perfect," the Doctor said, grinning. He was already heading for the door, when Galileo stretched out his hand.

"What is it, Doctor? What does it mean?"

"It means I can solve this mystery right now," the Doctor said with a grin. "I can save Siena."

"Save it from what?"

"From a monster lurking in that cabin that I think is about to wake up," the Doctor said, but at Galileo's bemused, disbelieving expression the Doctor came up short. "Listen, I know you're a man of science. I know that what I've just said sounds incredible. I also know that you trust me."

"Excuse me?" Galileo said, blinking. "And how would you know that, young man?"

"I'm older than I look," the Doctor said, motioning towards the far side of the room. "That's how I know."

Galileo followed the Doctor's pointing finger, and saw the brass model of the solar system that had been made for him by one of the greatest metalworkers in Rome.

"You left it out after Sophie and I had visited you yesterday," the Doctor said. "You've got bags under your eyes. You haven't slept. I think you've been staring at that, a model of the heliocentric solar system all night. I think you've been re-evaluating your thoughts, questioning the morality of your imprisonment. Tell me I'm wrong."

Galileo looked to the Doctor then, and he saw the tears glinting in the corners of the old man's eyes. "I cannot."

The Doctor smiled. "You're a great man, Galileo Galilei. Come with me. Come with me and help me stop the killings."

"I can't leave this house!" Galileo protested.

"You can," the Doctor said. "You're just not allowed to."

Galileo blinked, wiping away the tears with the corner of his crinkled dark robe. He took one step towards the Doctor and nodded resolutely. "Let's go," he said simply, and the Doctor grinned. They turned towards the door leading from Galileo's small suite of rooms, only to find their way blocked by Father Alessandro.

The Vatican priest, wearing a purple robe, was holding a small, wicked-looking blade, and he grinned at them with a tight, wolfish smile.

"How much do you know?" the Doctor asked.

"All of it," Alessandro said. "I know that the killer lurks in the catacombs beneath the Piazza del Campo. I know that you are not a representative of His Holiness. I know that Signor Galilei is not truly repentant, as many of my fellows have suspected."

Galileo tensed beside the Doctor, but the Time Lord remained unconcerned. "And what are you going to do with all that information, Father?"

Alessandro sniffed. "Why, I'm going to throw the two of you into a cell. Then I'm going to deal with the murderer personally. Finally, I'm going to see that Signor Galilei returns to the inquisition to suffer the consequences of his impiety."

"And me?"

"That's quite simple Doctor," Alessandro said, his smile glinting. "You'll never leave Siena alive."

* * *

><p>Ferdinando had almost returned to Luigi and Francesca's house when he saw a familiar face on the early morning, and still largely deserted streets. Only the bakers and the early rising merchants stirred, but Ferdinando recognised the old priest moving before him immediately.<p>

"Father Antonio?" Ferdinando said, rushing forward to greet the old man.

"Ferdinando!" the man said by way of greeting, and Ferdinando instantly recognised the expression of surprise that crossed his face. "What brings you here this morning?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing," Ferdinando said. "We're quite some way from your church."

"I've been working with the Archbishop," Antonio said, beckoning Ferdinando away from the slowly thickening crowd. They began to walk down an alley which, Ferdinando noted, was the exact way they needed to travel if they were going to get to Luigi and Francesca's home.

"He sent you here?" Ferdinando asked.

"Not exactly," Antonio said, and looked both ways down the alley. Ferdinando followed his gaze in each direction, but saw no one. "I answer to a higher power than the Archbishop of Siena."

Ferdinando was about to ask what he meant, but he never got a chance. He felt the sharp, rending pain as the knife was plunged into his chest. His eyes followed the priests arms from the hilt of the blade embedded in his body up to man's frail, ageing body; finally their eyes met, and the last thing Ferdinando heard before he died was Antonio's mocking words.

"My Master will rise, Ferdinando. And this city will fall."

* * *

><p>There was a sharp knock at the front door of Luigi and Francesca's house. Sophie told the two of them to wait where they were, assuring them that it would only be Ferdinando come to help her watch over them.<p>

Sophie pulled the locking bolt back, as Luigi stepped into the hall behind her. "No," he said, "use the hatch. Check who it is first."

It was too late, though; Sophie had already unbolted the door.

It was all Guido and Antonio, who were waiting on the other side, needed. They burst through, Guido first, and he clobbered Sophie before she had a chance to react. She fell, hard, and as the two men, both members of the Priestess' Cult, stormed the house, easily incapacitating Luigi and capturing Francesca.


	26. Eppur si Muove: 7

**'Eppur si Muove'**

_7. A Place as Dark as Night_

* * *

><p>"I hate this, you know," the Doctor said to Galileo Galilei as they heard the key twisting in the lock of the door that separated their small, cramped cell from the rest of the Archbishop's house's rather expansive and impressive wine cellar. "Being locked up. It gets old."<p>

"I know," the old scientist said, his shoulders slumped. The cell was empty but for a few empty barrels piled in one corner, and with the Doctor's help he set two of them up as seats. "What will become of my children, Doctor?"

The Doctor smiled, and patted his new friend's arm. "They'll be fine, signor. They really will. We just need to get out of here before Alessandro gets to the Piazza del Campo."

"Why, though, Doctor?" Galileo asked. "While I prefer that weasel of a man not get the credit for bringing the killers to justice, it's better that then they be allowed to continue their dark works, is it not?"

"It'll get him killed," the Doctor said. Alessandro had had two of the Archbishop's guards take them at sword-point to the cellar, where they'd been locked up without a second thought. Galileo had demanded to be allowed to see the Archbishop, but he was still at church following the dawn Mass. The Doctor hadn't joined Galileo sitting on the barrels, and was instead examining the stone around the wall. "I wasn't exaggerating when I saw that there was a monster lurking down there."

"Alessandro is a useful hand with a blade," Galileo assured the Doctor.

"It won't matter," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "Unless we get out of here, he'll be as dead as all the others."

"You still want to save his life?" Galileo said, and the Doctor saw he was confused. "Despite all he threatened you with?"

The Doctor shrugged. "He threatened me because he is a scared little man with a small mind. He still doesn't deserve to die."

"You're a better man than I," the old man told him.

The Doctor laughed and shook his head. "I'm really not." A few moments later, he concluded that there was no way he would be able to shimmy either the door or its hinges free from the stone. Alessandro had confiscated his sonic screwdriver, and the Doctor realised there was absolutely no way they'd be able to get free without some help on the outside. "Damn it."

"What can we do?" Galileo asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "Wait."

"Where is your friend?"

"You wouldn't happen to know Luigi the Jew and his daughter Francesca would you?" the Doctor asked, but Galileo shook his head. "Francesca was attacked yesterday, and Sophie managed to rescue her. He spent last night at their house. She's keeping watch over them, making sure they're safe. I sent a man from the castle, Ferdinando, to join her."

"Ferdinando?" Galileo repeated. "He was the investigator in charge of tracking down the murderer before Alessandro arrived. A good man."

"Yes he is," the Doctor nodded. "Unfortunately, he's on the other side of the city now. What about Antonio, the priest in charge of the research?"

Galileo huffed. "Antonio? A more impious man I have never met!"

The Doctor was shocked. "I'm sorry?"

"I've read about him," Galileo explained. "He's mentioned several times in the city chronicles. Once he was brought up on charges of improper worship, though those charges were dropped."

"He seemed like a fairly unassuming fellow," the Doctor said, confused.

"I assure you he's not."

The Doctor remembered the man he'd seen the night before watching Luigi's house. He frowned. "Do you know if either Alessandro or Archbishop Piccolomini had a spy watching me last night?"

Galileo frowned. "I do not believe so."

The Doctor slapped a hand to his forehead. "Oh, silly Doctor! How did I not see it! There must have been something in the Archbishop's library about the discoveries in the catacombs, reports of odd behaviour down there. Antonio wasn't having a hard time finding information, he was covering it all up! It's not just a hand full of killers; it's a cult! It must be! And it makes sense, too. The cult has probably been influencing Siena for centuries, communing with the Vrigillian…"

"The what?" Galileo asked.

The Doctor ignored him, and stared around their cell one more time. There was nothing but a small, grate-like window near the top of the wall facing the cell door. There was no way they'd be able to get out through there, though, they were both much too large. The Doctor went over to it, and used a barrel to get a better view through it. He was staring out onto the courtyard through which the Archbishop had entered the house the day before.

"You're friends with Piccolomini, aren't you?" the Doctor asked.

Galileo nodded.

"Well, I guess we have to wait until he gets back."

"Then we follow Alessandro?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, we've got to get out to Luigi's house, and make sure Sophie's safe." Even as he spoke the words, he had a sinking feeling in his gut that he was already too late.

* * *

><p>Sophie Freeman came awake slowly, in stages, but the first thing she realised for sure was that she was restrained by the wrists and ankles to a slab of cold, hard stone. She realised, too, that she was blindfolded. She could smell mould and dust, and had the distinct impression that she was underground. She tried to remember what had happened, but could remember little after she'd opened the door. She had faint recollections of the attack, but after that all she remembered were brief flashes of impression; her bare feet on the city streets, people staring at her as she passed.<p>

"Francesca," she whispered automatically, wondering what had become of her new friend. Unbidden, images of Chihiro came to mind; she saw the young woman's broken body, slumped over.

"Sophie?" she heard a return whisper come from right beside her. "Are you there?"

"Oh, thank God," Sophie said, and tried to struggle against her bonds, but they remained tight against her wrists. "Are you all right?"

"I don't think I'm hurt," she said. "Did you see what happened to my father?"

"No," she said, honestly. "I'm so sorry, Francesca. It's my fault."

"It's not," Francesca whispered insistently.

"It really is," came a voice; it belonged to a woman, but it sounded old. Not just in human terms, in… Sophie could think of no other word than geological. It was a voice as old as stone.

Sophie's blindfold was removed, and she found herself looking into the craggy features of an older woman. She and Francesca were lashed to a stone table in the centre of an enormous cavern, lined with stalagmites and stalactites, lit by hundreds upon hundreds of candles and adorned with red fabric flags, each printed with the image of the brand that had been burnt into the victims' skin. If Sophie titled her neck, she could see a lit brazier, which illuminated a shining black outcropping of rock.

"The Vrigillian," she said under her breath.

The old woman smiled. "I'm glad that I won't have to introduce you to my Master, Sophie Freeman. I see that you're already acquainted."

"The what?" Francesca said, but even as her friend spoke Sophie saw movement in the strange, flickering shadows cast by the candles. Robed and hooded figures, dozens of them, were emerging from the darkness. Francesca saw them and fell silent.

"Perhaps you recognise some of my compatriots," the Priestess said, beckoning over two of the hooded figures. They stepped across and dropped the cowls of their robes, revealing their features.

"Father Antonio!" Sophie erupted. "How could you?"

The old man ignored her. "Your orders, Priestess?"

She, in turn, ignored him, and showed the other man, a wiry, though thoroughly unremarkable man, to the retrained women. "This is Guido. An effective abductor, it turns out, even though you scared him off yesterday, Ms. Freeman."

Sophie blinked. This was the second time this woman, the Priestess, had said her name. "How do you know who I am?"

"I know everything about you, Ms. Freeman," the woman said with a dark, huntress' smile. "After all these time, all these sacrifices, it is your blood that the Master wants. Your sweet, chronon-infused blood."

"My what-on-infused blood?" Sophie repeated.

The Priestess' expression grew cold. "Oh, the things you must have seen, Sophie Freeman. Tell me, what does this world look like in the future? Do you all speak the name of my Master as you do? Do you all speak of the Vrigillians?"

Sophie was about to answer when the Priestess suddenly looked up. To Antonio, she said "There's an intruder. Bring him to me."

Alessandro found the entrance to the catacombs easily enough; he descended from a chapel on the street level of the Piazza del Campo, through a stone chamber crisscrossed with spider webs and burnt out torches, and entered through a small crack in the wall. He held his dagger before him and wriggled his way through the dank, musty tunnels. It did not take him long to find the grand cavern beneath the catacombs.

Dozens of dark-cloaked individuals crowded the chamber, and through the flickering candlelight the Vatican priest saw the two girls tied down on the stone table, saw the old woman stand above them. He saw the woman whisper something to one of her attendants, who slipped away from the unholy congregation. Alessandro considered his options. Perhaps he should escape the catacombs, gather together a force composed of city soldiers and the Archbishop's personal guard, and return en masse. Yes, he had his knife, and he was skilled in its use, but all those people would easily overwhelm him, and he decided he could not wait much longer to rid the world of their satanic evil.

He was about to get up and retrace his steps when he heard movement behind him. He whipped about, but too late; Antonio stepped from the darkness and cold-cocked him, knocking him to the ground.

* * *

><p>Archbishop Ascanio Piccolomini was fuming when his carriage returned him to his residence. One of his guards had rushed to inform him that Alessandro had ordered the imprisonment of his guest, Signor Galileo Galilei and an agent of His Holiness, whom Piccolomini had guessed to be the Doctor. He had been unable to escape his ecclesiastical duties for several more hours, and had finally made his way back home. He stalked across the courtyard, wondering where Alessandro would have stashed his old friend, when he heard a voice coming from a narrow grate in the courtyard's pavers.<p>

"Ascanio, my friend!"

Piccolomini froze, and went to the grate. Peering in, he saw his friend Galileo looking up at him, the old man clearly balancing on the shoulders of someone else.

"What has happened to you?" Ascanio demanded, not bothering to whisper. The guards that had accompanied him stared openly, but he didn't care.

"It was Alessandro," Galileo explained. "He locked me down here."

"He has gone too far!" Piccolomini said. "Wait a few moments, my friend, you shall be free."

Piccolomini beckoned his guards to follow him, and went into his house. He made haste for the wine cellar, which he knew had a cell built into it, a remnant of his predecessor's more active support for the inquisition. He found the door to the cellar guarded by two men, who moved to block his way.

"Step aside," he growled.

The men shared concerned looks. "We cannot, sir. Father Alessandro ordered us not to, and he speaks with the authority of His Holiness."

"I give not a damn for Alessandro's orders or his authority!" Piccolomini thundered; it was a long time since he had delivered his fire and brimstone sermons in the pulpit, but today he found that that flame was returning to him at the thought of Alessandro's disrespect for his authority as Archbishop of Siena. "Step aside, gentlemen. Do not make me ask you again."

The men hesitated. Alessandro signalled to the guards at his back, who drew their blades.

"Step aside, gentlemen," he repeated, "or I will have no compunction ordering these men to run you through."

The guards shared one more look, before nodding and stepping aside. Piccolomini brushed past them, but paused before he entered the cellar. "Give me the key to the cell," he demanded.

One of the guards handed him a key, and he nodded graciously. "Arrest them," he ordered his men.

The Archbishop hurried down the stairs, into the cellar, and over to the cells. He slid the key into the lock and wasted no time pulling it open. Galileo and the other prisoner, whom the Archbishop now saw was the Doctor, piled out immediately.

"Thank you, Archbishop," said the Doctor as he exited, "but I'm afraid I need one more favour."

"I agreed to free Galileo," the Archbishop said, "not you."

"And that would be a fine distinction to make ordinarily," the Doctor nodded in agreement, "but not today. I need Galileo and some men. Two or three of your guards."

"Galileo cannot leave my house," the Archbishop insisted, "and I'm not sure it would be wise to allow you freedom either, Doctor."

The Doctor sighed. "Archbishop, I don't have time to explain this to you, but I know who killed those girls. I know what they're going to do next, and I know how to stop them. I also have reason to believe that my companion may already have been captured. Now, please, get out of my way, let Galileo come with me, and lend me two of your guards."

The Archbishop shook your head. "Galileo is cannot leave this house."

"Oh, of course he can!" the Doctor cried in exasperation. "He's just not allowed to!"

Grabbing Galileo's hand, he pulled him towards the exit, not bothering to waste any more time. As they exited, they passed two of the Archbishop's guards, standing over the bloodied, unconscious form of the guards the Doctor recognised as having thrown him in the cell to begin with.

"Come with us," he told them, his tone making it clear that there was no room for argument. The Archbishop followed them, and the Doctor made a beeline, with the guards and Galileo in tow, for the Archbishop's stables, where he knew the man's carriage would be waiting.

* * *

><p>"We found this on him," Antonio reported to the Priestess as two of his fellow robed cult members threw the unconscious Alessandro at her feet. He handed her a long, thin metal device, with a sculpted grip. Sophie recognised it immediately, but stayed silent.<p>

The Priestess examined it. "Sonic technology," she said at length. "Most impressive."

The Doctor's sonic screwdriver, Sophie thought, and she looked down at Alessandro's body, which her other attacker was standing over, nudging with his foot. Finally, the Vatican priest came to and Guido hauled him to his feet.

"Where did you get this?" the Priestess demanded of him.

Alessandro didn't answer, and Sophie could see the fire in his eyes. "How dare you speak to me, you crone? Release me!"

The woman rolled her eyes. "Did you find a weapon on him?" she asked Antonio, who dutifully passed over the knife he'd collected from Alessandro.

"And you!" Alessandro barked at him. "You will not be spared the eternal damnation of hell, Antonio!"

"Oh, shut up, you fool," Antonio responded, voice dripping with disdain.

Alessandro was enraged, but he was restrained easily by Guido. The priest fought to get free, and it was now that Sophie decided to join the conversation. "What did you do with the Doctor, you bastard?" she demanded of him.

"What?" the Priestess asked Sophie. "Who is the Doctor?"

"My friend," Sophie said, and blinked. "How do you know who I am and not who the Doctor is?"

"So the Doctor is the owner of this device," the Priestess surmised, displaying the sonic screwdriver. "Who is he?"

Sophie remained stolidly silent, hoping against hope that the Doctor was already on his way. She didn't want to give him away, to ruin the element of surprise that may be the only hope of survival she and Francesca had left.

"You don't need to answer," the Priestess said, and handed the screwdriver back to Antonio. She stepped towards Sophie and pressed her hand on the woman's forehead. Sophie felt a pressure in her temples, like tendrils digging into her brain, pulling it apart, searching for something.

"What are you doing to her?" Francesca screeched; Sophie's eyes had rolled backwards, and she began to seize, pulling against her bondage. The Priestess ignored her, the cult and Alessandro watching the proceedings in stunned silence. Finally, the Priestess released her, and she stopped seizing with a gasp.

"A Time Lord…" the Priestess said under her breath, and then to Sophie: "My Master thought you would be enough to awaken him, time travelling Sophie Freeman, but it's nice to know that we have a Time Lord and all that delicious, chronon-drenched blood to feast upon!"

"Feast?" Sophie repeated, somewhat groggy from the telepathic probing she'd just undergone.

"Like this," the Priestess said, and her hand snaked outwards like a darting cobra. She still carried Alessandro's knife, and with an easy, fluid gesture, she cut his throat. Francesca screamed and Sophie winced, her stomach disappearing into her feet, as Guido released his twitching body, blood gushing from the wound. It splashed against the black outcropping of rock.

The ground shook, almost imperceptibly, and the rock seemed to pulsate, though only for a moment.

The Priestess grinned. "My Master's appetite has been whetted." Then, to Guido, she said "Prepare the brand."

* * *

><p>They found Luigi out cold on the floor of his house, with no sign of Sophie or Francesca. The trip from the Archbishop's home to Luigi's had only taken a matter of minutes, the Doctor driving two galloping horses through the streets of Siena; the denizens, now awoken and going about their daily business, had flattened themselves against the sides of the buildings they passed.<p>

The Doctor ordered the Archbishop's guards to help Luigi back to the Archbishop's house, and if either one of them felt uncomfortable associating with a Jew, neither of them spoke up. He quickly moved through the house, looking for any sign of Sophie, Ferdinando or Francesca.

"They're gone," he told Galileo, who remained waiting near the front door, which they had found open. "This is worse than I thought."

"Your friend is in danger," Galileo said, but the Doctor shook his head.

"It's worse than that," the Doctor said, and even as he spoke, he took Galileo by the arm and took him back towards the carriage they'd left outside the house, watched over by a group of young boys that had been standing nearby, perhaps gossiping about what had happened earlier that morning. "If they have Sophie, the whole city is in danger."

"But how?"

The Doctor explained to Galileo, in the simplest terms he could, about the Vrigillian. "It feeds off of the energies in blood. The psychic remnants of human lives in the fluid that makes it all possible. Sophie's blood is, well, special. She's not from around here. Chronon energy will have infused every single cell. It's exactly what that creature needs to wake up."

"Then we must waste no time, Doctor!" Galileo said, and the two dashed towards the carriage as fast as their legs could carry them.

* * *

><p>The cult had gathered around Sophie and Francesca, lashed to the stone table, as the Priestess began to rant in tongues. The members, including Antonio and Guido, knelt, were slowly bowing in rhythm with the Priestesses prayers. The black stone was still bathed in the blood of Alessandro, whose prone body lay on the floor, and every now and then it seemed to pulsate. Two cult members placed urns on either side of the table, and Sophie realised that they were at the right position to catch blood that would pour from their slit throats.<p>

Those same cult members moved to the brazier left beside the stone. The Priestess had left the sonic screwdriver lying on top of the stone, and went to the brazier as the cult members took over the chanting. She grasped the handle brand and pulled it free; Sophie was desperately terrified, but she fought the urge to cry, while Francesca had broken down into heartrending sobs.

"And now we will sacrifice you," the Priestess said, bearing down upon the prone young women with the brand held before her. Sophie saw the death's head, the ram's horns, the distended jaw, all lit in molten red and orange. "Your blood will feed the Master, and he in turn will feed on this city and the whole of this world!"

"I don't think so!" roared a voice from the entrance to the catacombs.

Sophie twisted about, trying to see who had shouted, but the cult was already on its feet, staring at the intruder. Galileo Galilei stood in the entryway, as bold as brass, his thickly bearded chin cocked at a haughty angle.

The Priestess, horrified at having her ritual interrupted, seemed at a loss for words. The cult just stared at the old scientist, and she moved her arms in a gesture of impotence before shouting "Get him!"

"I wouldn't," came a voice from behind her.

She and the cult spun about to find the Doctor leaning on the Vrigillian rock. He grinned at her, as she growled in rage.

"I'm the Doctor," he said, and he nodded towards Sophie. "You've got two of my friends here. Now, I don't want to hurt you. I _do_, however, want to stop you from hurting them, or anyone else, so the choice is yours. Put down the brand. Leave this chamber. Or be destroyed."

The Priestess laughed. "You think you can stop us all?"

"I don't need to stop all of you," the Doctor said, "I just need to destroy this rock."

"And how do you propose to destroy a rock?"

"There's a crystalline matrix in here," the Doctor said, smiling, and plucked his sonic screwdriver from on top of the rock. "The bioprint of your Master is stored in it. And you've left me my screwdriver, which, I assume you know, is sonic. All I need to do is find the right frequency and I can shatter the matrix, destroying your Master."

The Priestess roared and ran at the Doctor, wielding the brand like a sword. He lifted his hand to block the attack, but the sharp metal rod cut his skin. He grimaced from the pain, but easily pushed the woman aside. The brand went skittering across the rocky floor of the cavern, but the Doctor lost his footing and threw out his hand, pressing it against the cold stone of the Vrigillian pod. His blood began to sizzle as it made contact with the pod.

"Oh, no," he said, as he righted himself.

"Oh, yes," the Priestess said, pulling herself up. "A Time Lord's blood, so rich in the energies of the Vortex. A few drops is all my Master needs!"

It was the last thing she ever said. The cavern began to shake, and she lost her footing; the cult members sprawled across the stone floor, and Galileo, too, fell, but the Doctor managed to maintain his upright position as the black stone split in half, a deep red glow emerging from the interior. The Priestess' Basin fell and split open, its liquid flowing towards the red glow. The brazier shattered open, spilling hot coals across the floor of the chamber.

Sophie and Francesca screamed, but the Doctor couldn't move as the death's head cranium of the Vrigillian rose from the interior of its pod, a great beast given form by the Doctor's own blood. It was enormous, barely fitting into the chamber, its arms bulging with muscles, its flesh raw pink. It opened its distended jaws and gave another might howl, which filled the chamber. Loose rocks and dust fell from the ceiling, and the Doctor realised that the cavern was probably about to collapse. The Priestess was staring up at the creature in abject wonder, but with a bat of its hand it slapped her into the rock. She was killed instantly.

The monster advanced on the Doctor, but Sophie's scream pulled him from his shock. He turned on his heel and dashed towards the stone table, where Sophie and Francesca had been restrained. Galileo was already there, using the ritual knife to cut away their bonds. Guido was trying to pull him free, but with the preternatural strength of a man trying to help his friends, the old Pisan shoved him away.

Guido fell, right into the rampaging jaws and claws of the Vrigillian, which was chasing the Doctor. The Doctor reached Sophie, and used his sonic screwdriver to loosen the ropes. They came free, and he helped her up, just as Galileo freed Francesca.

"Run!" the Doctor cried, and turned back as the Vrigillian rose over him.

"But what about you?" Sophie asked desperately, as Galileo pulled on her hand. Francesca was already fleeing, but most of the cult was still standing, watching the creature in awe.

"Come on, girl!" Galileo told her.

"Go," the Doctor whispered, nodding. "I'll be with you soon."

Sophie nodded and ran, Galileo right behind her. Francesca reached the exit first, and they were hot on her heels. The Vrigillian had begun to attack the cult, consuming them and the energies in their blood. It was growing stronger, the Doctor knew, but the tremors running through the cavern were growing stronger too.

"You have to stop!" the Doctor cried. "If you keep doing this, the cavern will collapse! You'll be killed!"

The creature didn't care to listen, apparently. It continued to feast, and as the cult members tried to flee it easily caught them, cramming them into its already full gullet. The tremors only grew worse; the cavern was just seconds from collapsing. The Doctor could feel it in his bones. "Run!" he called to the cult members that remained. "All of you!"

With that, he bolted for the entrance to the cavern, and was gratified to see that most of the cult members were following him, led by Father Antonio. The man was clearly terrified, utterly panicked. The Doctor reached the entryway, and began to run upwards back into the catacombs, but the Vrigillian was close behind, carving through the cult members.

The tunnel was shaking hard enough to throw the Doctor to the ground now, and Antonio fell directly behind him. The Doctor turned back; rocks and dust were falling from the roof in showers now. The Vrigillian was getting closer.

"Give me your hand!" he cried to Antonio, but too late; the monster had already devoured him. The man screamed as the long, dagger-like teeth tore his flesh apart. The Doctor pushed himself up and ran, fast and hard, as the tunnel continued its collapse. As he ran, he thought of Sophie.

Rocks fell, and the Vrigillian gave one last cry of triumph and sated hunger as it was crushed.

* * *

><p>At street level, Sophie, Galileo and Francesca burst into the sunny Siena day. Hundreds of people were in the Piazza del Campo, the largest open space in the city, though none of them looked fazed; Sophie realised that the tremors, however hard they must have felt underground, hadn't disturbed the surface. Francesca was still sobbing, clearly traumatised, and Galileo comforted her. Sophie turned back to the chapel leading from the catacombs.<p>

Seconds seemed to drag by, before a figure emerged from the chapel; a long, dark coat covered in dust, and a tired, victorious smile.

"Doctor!" she cried, flinging herself into his arms.

He hugged her tight and said "Welcome to history, Sophie Freeman."


	27. Eppur si Muove: 8

**'Eppur si Muove'**

_8. As Splendid as the Moon_

* * *

><p>They spent that night at the Archbishop's house; even Luigi and Francesca, the Jews, were welcomed by the old man, who happily provided them all with food and shelter. Though shocked by the goings on in the cavern beneath the catacombs, he was won over by Galileo's testimony; he made it clear, though, that Alessandro's death would likely mean that Galileo would be removed from his custody. Galileo, saddened by this news, was comforted only by the Doctor's promise that, in the morning, he would be shown something that would save him from his dishonour.<p>

Francesca and Luigi had returned to their house to begin the long ritual of Shiva for Miriam, and the guards had reported that Ferdinando's body had been found not far from their house, evidently a victim of the men that had abducted Sophie and Francesca, when the Doctor and Sophie had risen and collected Galileo.

The next morning, with Galileo in tow, Doctor and Sophie found the TARDIS exactly where they'd left it two days before, sitting in the Piazza del Duomo, beneath the imposing edifice of the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala. The blue box looked exactly the same as it had when they'd left it, serenely keeping watch on the stones of the piazza. There were collections of people in the piazza, talking, joking, laughing, none of them having any clue that they'd all come so close to death not an hour before.

The Doctor turned to Galileo, his robe still soiled with the dust from the collapsing catacomb, and said "I just want to warn you, the interior of the TARDIS can be quite…"

"Breathtaking," Sophie said, finishing his thought as he trailed off.

"After what I saw in the catacombs, Doctor, I believe I can handle anything that you might consider 'breathtaking'," Galileo assured him.

The Doctor and Sophie shared a look. "Don't be too sure, signor," Sophie said.

With a smile, the Doctor reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out the TARDIS key. He unlocked the door, and stepped inside. Galileo followed, and Sophie was about to enter when she cast one last look around the piazza. Afternoon was quickly gathering over the city, the sun about to set on their third day in Italy. She wished they could have stayed longer, could have visited the Torre del Mangia itself and not just the catacombs beneath it, but she knew it was time to move on.

With a deep breath, she stepped from the Italian mid-afternoon into the rarefied confines of the TARDIS. Galileo was standing in the cavernous chamber, mouth agape, staring up in wonder at the vaulted ceiling high above, at the walls inset with roundels, at the raised tier where the Doctor stood, manipulating controls on the console.

"By all the saints," he said beneath his breath, and quickly blessed himself with the sign of cross. "I have never seen anything like it!"

"Dimensionally transcendent," Sophie said as she stepped beside him. "I'm not entirely sure what that means, but it's what he always tells me."

Galileo shook his head, struck dumb by the wonder.

"Come on," Sophie said, and she helped the old man up the ramp to join the Doctor on the raised tier. "The Doctor has something to show you."

Galileo blinked, his eyes finally ceasing their roaming across the awes of the TARDIS control room and falling to the Doctor, who offered him a bolstering smile. "And what is that, Doctor? Something more spectacular than a box that is bigger on the inside that on the outside?"

"Oh, this is nothing," the Doctor said. "You might want to grab a hold of something."

Sophie took a hold of the edges of the console, and Galileo did the same, his expression having grown slightly panicked. The Doctor flung down a lever, and the time rotor at the centre of the console began to oscillate up and down. The noise was cacophonous, and Galileo looked about with equal parts horror and fascination. Sophie couldn't help but laugh at the old man's expression, and the Doctor let out a whoop of enjoyment as the TARDIS began to shake and buck beneath them.

Then, as usual and as always, the sound and the movement died away all at once. Sophie and the Doctor let go of the console and began to make their way towards the door before they noticed that Galileo was still clutching to the console for dear life.

"Come on," the Doctor said. "You'll want to see this."

Slowly, trepidation in every movement, Galileo picked his way through the console room towards them, heading back towards the TARDIS door. "What was that? That movement?"

"You'll see," Sophie promised him, and then she and the Doctor took positions either side of the TARDIS door.

"This was Sophie's idea," the Doctor said. "So she gets the thanks. And the blame."

"The blame?" Sophie asked, amused.

"He's an old bloke, Sophie," the Doctor told her. "I can't imagine his heart will handle what he's about to see so well."

Galileo drew himself up to his full height. "My heart was strong enough to handle that creature, Doctor, and your TARDIS. My heart was strong enough to face the inquisition and it will face whatever is outside this box of yours."

The Doctor grinned. "All right, then. Sophie, on three."

Galileo took a deep breath, wondering what this brilliant, enigmatic man was about to show him. The Doctor counted down from three to one, and on one, he and Sophie flung open the doors of the TARDIS.

Galileo's breath was taken from him all at once. Before him, he saw a great blue orb, and beyond it he saw the distant fireball that was the sun. Down below, beneath marbled white clouds he saw the distinct boot-shape of the Italian peninsula, the heel that was Puglia, the kicked ball that was Sicily, and below it the coast of Africa.

"That is… that is my world!" Galileo gasped.

"Yes it is," the Doctor said. "That's Earth."

Galileo made the sign of the cross again, and looked to Sophie and the Doctor in turn. "We are in the heavens! Am I dead? Are you angels? Surely only angels could provide such a vision!"

"You're not dead," the Doctor assured him, hoping his tone was calming. "We're not angels. I'm just your friendly neighbourhood Doctor and this is my companion, Sophie. We don't work for the Pope, as you've no doubt figured out, but we are travellers. We came a long way to see you."

"To see me?" Galileo echoed, his voice quiet. His eyes were as wide as saucers, drinking in everything beyond the TARDIS doors.

"Oh, yes," the Doctor said. "You have a reputation, Signor Galilei, and not for being shamed, or dishonoured, or cast from the house of God. In the future, you will be remembered as one of the greatest scientists ever to live. Your name will eclipse that of Aristotle's. Isn't that right, Sophie?"

Sophie grinned and nodded. "Definitely. Your name will be up there with Einstein and Newton. Every school child will learn about you and your discoveries. The church is even going to apologise for the way it treated you."

"How can you possibly know this?" Galileo asked.

"Down there, it's the year 1633," the Doctor said. "Sophie was born in the year 1991. I met her in the year 2011."

Galileo was plainly shocked. "You're from the future?"

The Doctor nodded. "Normally, I'd hesitate to tell a man of your era anything about where we really come from, Sophie and I, but I know you, Galileo Galilei. Everyone does. You are a man of true science, of true wisdom and, yes, of true and unyielding faith. Which is why I want you to bear with me for just a moment longer."

He nodded to Sophie, and disappeared back to the TARDIS console. Sophie smiled and touched Galileo on the back. She saw that tears streaked the old man's cheeks. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, my dear," he said, and she saw that beneath his beard he was smiling. "I don't think I have ever been happier in my life."

The Doctor began to turn a crank on the console, and outside the TARDIS doors, protected by the powerful shields of the TARDIS air shell, the Earth began to move. Time was being sped up, Sophie realised, relative to the passage of time inside the TARDIS, and the Earth was suddenly speeding around its orbital track on its yearly trip around the sun.

Galileo's jaw dropped; he saw what was happening. He clutched at Sophie, his knees suddenly buckling beneath him. She grabbed him, and found that he was lighter than he seemed.

"It moves," he said, his eyes tracing the Earth as it turned around the sun, spinning on its axis, the moon moving around it in turn. "And yet it moves!"

"Eppur si muove," Sophie said, shutting the doors of the TARDIS. She helped Galileo over to the seats beneath the console tier, and he sat in the Doctor's overstuffed Edwardian armchair, weeping openly. "Will you be all right?"

"All right? My dear, nothing will ever be the same again!" he howled through his tears, and she heard the pure, unadulterated joy in his voice.

She went to join the Doctor beside the console, who was preparing the TARDIS for the return trip to Siena.

"How did he take it?" the Doctor asked, not taking his eyes from the controls.

"As well as can be expected," Sophie said, honestly. She added, "He's crying."

"Italians," the Doctor said with an exaggerated shrug. "What can you do?"

Sophie laughed, but then her expression grew serious. She paused for a moment, considering how she was going to phrase the question that forming on her lips. "Is it always like that, Doctor? Do you always… do you always do that for people? Give them their moment of grace?"

"Not all the time," the Doctor told her. "But nothing makes me happier."

* * *

><p>Galileo led the way out of the TARDIS onto the field of sunflowers. Siena sat in the distance, perhaps half an hour's walk away. The hills and trees of Tuscany spread out before them, brilliantly yellow and green, dotted with farmhouses and barns and the odd windmill. It was a beautiful tableau, the kind Sophie had always imagined Tuscany to be filled with.<p>

Sophie and the Doctor were rather sedate as they followed the old man, but he threw his arms open, and despite his age danced a little jig, before getting onto his knees to kiss the ground.

He was laughing, gleeful, in a way that Sophie had rarely seen in anyone.

"Do you know what this means, Doctor?" he said, turning to them. "Do you have any idea what this means?"

"It means that you were right," the Doctor said, nodding, smiling in satisfaction.

"Oh, no, not that," Galileo said, waving the suggestion away. "It means that there is so much more to be learnt! So much more to be discovered! I have seen this world from the heavens, and it was so small. And do you know what that means?"

The Doctor shook his head.

"It means that we are all so large!" Galileo cried. "God's work exists in every aspect of nature, in every single one of us. I may have been wallowing in sadness these past months, but my mind has not been idle. I shall write about the two new sciences I have been pondering, Doctor! I shall spread my knowledge and my wisdom, regardless of what my opponents might think."

"An admirable goal," the Doctor nodded, smiling.

"There is so much to learn," Galileo repeated, pulling Sophie into an unexpected bear hug. "I fear I shall not live long enough to learn it all."

"My friend," the Doctor said, hugging Galileo after he released Sophie. "You will live forever. I hope you realise that. No one will ever forget the name Galileo. Even as your descendants take their first steps out amongst the stars, they will do so with your name on their lips."

Galileo shook his head, his eyes again brimming with tears. "You have made an old man very happy, Doctor."

"Always remember," the Doctor said, "there are more things in heaven and on Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophies."

Sophie rolled her eyes. "He didn't come up with that line, you know."

"Not for a moment, my dear," Galileo said, "did I think he had." With that, the man turned and began his walk back to Siena, throwing one last goodbye over his shoulder. As he departed, Sophie thought she heard the distinct sound of singing.

"So," the Doctor said to his companion. "Where next?"

Sophie beamed. "How about everywhere?"


	28. The Factory Workers: 1

Historian's Note: the following takes place some weeks after the previous adventure, 'Eppur si Muove'

* * *

><p>'<strong>The Factory Workers'<strong>

_One_

* * *

><p>"Where are we?" Sophie asked, almost by reflex; she'd only been travelling with the Doctor for a short time, but she'd learnt enough to know which questions to ask right off the bat. "Or, you know, <em>when<em> are we?"

The Doctor stood on the other side of the TARDIS console, which dominated the exact centre of the cavernous, mysterious room they stood in. The walls, orange and burnished gold in colour, were fitted with countless roundels of various sizes in varying patterns, and it all seemed to glow with some kind of burning, intrinsic light. There was little doubt that this room and the ship that surrounded it was alive, brimming with an energy and consciousness Sophie hadn't even tried to understand yet.

He checked his readouts, the scanner screen mounted on the console, and smiled. "Ford XVII."

"Come again?" Sophie asked, stepping around the console to join him. She was a petite young woman, twenty years old, with mousy brown hair that fell in curls to her shoulders.

"Ford XVII," the Doctor repeated in the exact same tone of voice. "Here."

He tapped a few controls, and brought up an image of the planet they'd landed on. To Sophie, it looked as though it was covered in urban sprawl, its sky obscured by smog.

"It's one of twenty Ford-class factory planets commissioned by the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire."

"A factory planet?"

"The entire world is, well, a factory. Or millions of factories. Completely automated, stripping this planet of every useable resource, then subsisting off of raw materials shipped in. Old, ruined things are brought here to be broken down to their core components, which are then remade anew."

Sophie was impressed, if a little disturbed. "So, not exactly the most pleasant place in the galaxy, then?"

"Oh, not by a long shot," the Doctor agreed. "But still, an impressive feat of human engineering. A lesser man might ask why humans have to rip everything apart to make, you know, washing machines, toasters, iPods… but I'm not a lesser man, am I?"

Sophie snorted. "No, I suppose not."

The Doctor did some more work on the console, before going on. "The atmosphere's relatively clear today. As you might imagine, the pollution can get rather intense. Walking through acid, pretty much. There are some wonderful technologies out there designed to keep the air clean, but they're expensive and difficult to maintain and there's only so much they can do."

Sophie was already wandering over to the TARDIS door. "Is this what it's always like with you? First a lecture, then we get to go outside?"

The Doctor noticed she was moving, but didn't make a move to stop her. "You asked me where we were. I answered."

"I didn't think it would take you that long," she said, teasing.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Humans. No patience."

"I am a patient person, Doctor!" Sophie protested, her hand now resting on the door handles. "I'm also an adventurous person."

The Doctor couldn't help but grin. He remembered Sophie's first trip to an alien world; New Tokyo, a human colony world in the far future. Even before the artificial intelligence in the skyscraper they'd landed in had turned against them and the building's inhabitants in a roaring display of circuitry-gone-homicidal, she'd been overwhelmed with anxiety. And now, to see that same woman rush out the TARDIS doors, ready for a world even less pleasant than atmosphere-less New Tokyo? He had to admit, it was brilliant.

"Yes you are," he agreed. He grabbed his coat from the rail ringing the raised tier upon which the console sat, and went to follow Sophie.

Joining her at the front door, he beheld her jeans, t-shirt and boots. "You might want to grab a jacket," he said. "It might get a bit cold out there."

Sophie eyed his coat. "You, um… don't feel the cold, if I remember correctly?"

He sighed. "Fine. Here. Just be careful, won't you? It's got all my stuff in the pockets."

Handing her his coat, he helped her into it; the sleeves fell far below her hands, and she was almost completely swamped by it. "Nice and toasty," she said, and without further ado nudged open the TARDIS doors.

The Doctor followed her out, and discovered a long, empty corridor.

"Impressive," Sophie said, deadpan.

"Yeah, well…" the Doctor said, reaching into one of the pockets on the coat Sophie was wearing. He pulled out a long, thin device, and activated it; a high-pitched fluting noise filled the air, and the tip of the device flared blue. Waving around the device, his trusty sonic screwdriver, the Doctor ran a quick scan. Examining the readouts, he said "This way!" and quickly set off down the corridor.

Sophie struggled to keep up, the Doctor's massive coat restricting her movements, and not for the first time she thought about how strange they must seem together; she, small and willowy, he tall as a gum and twice again as broad.

"Where are we going?" she called out.

"Here," the Doctor said, and she saw he'd come to a stop at an unmarked door. The corridor was long and almost entirely featureless; behind them sat the TARDIS, and there was the hum of air conditioning, but other than the light fixtures spaced intermittently along the ceiling, this door and the inlaid control panel beside it, was the only noticeable detail.

"What is this place?"

"I don't know," the Doctor said, as he studied the control panel. "My guess is… some kind of maintenance tunnel? Maybe a connecting bridge between two factories?"

He ran the sonic screwdriver over the panel, as Sophie leant against the wall. "Why is the corridor air conditioned?"

"Sorry?"

"Why is the corridor air conditioned? I can hear the machines… you said the factories were all automated, so why bother air conditioning them? You don't need to keep workers comfortable…"

The Doctor shrugged. "Regulate machine temperatures?"

"Yeah, but there aren't any machines here," Sophie said. "It seems pointless. And wasteful, for that matter."

The Doctor cocked and eyebrow. "That's true. Ah, here we go."

He deactivated the screwdriver, and hit a control. The door whirred open, and the Doctor led the way outside.

They were standing on a rooftop, surrounded by an endless cityscape. The sky was clear, an endless, cloudless blue stretching out above them. There, hanging in the sky, was the planet's moon; even from this distance, it looked to be a lush, beautiful place, with lakes and jungle covering most of it, a few cities dotting the southern half of the visible face.

"Wow," Sophie said breathlessly, staring out at fields of endless fields of smokestacks and silos, scaffolding and refineries. "That's… awesome."

"Awesome," the Doctor agreed, "and a little disturbing. That moon is where all of the people live; a terraformed paradise for the security officers, technicians, managers."

Sophie nodded. "Yeah. Wow. What do they make here?"

"Oh," the Doctor said, "just about everything. Starships, house goods, tractors, self sealing stembolts…"

"Self whatting what-nows?"

The Doctor just smiled. "I've never been sure what those were."

"So what do we do now?"

The Doctor turned to her, about to answer, when he froze. His eyes were fixed on something over her shoulder.

"Doctor?" Sophie asked, suddenly frightened. "What's wrong? What is it?" She turned, slowly, and saw what he was looking at; a pair of people, humans, from what she could tell, both wearing metallic silver uniforms and each pointing a long, futuristic rifle at the two of them.

"Hands up," growled the lead, a young woman no older than Sophie herself.

The Doctor's hands shot up, screwdriver still held tight. Sophie's hands were somewhat slower. "I thought you said no one was on this planet, Doctor," she reminded him through gritted teeth.

"No one _should_ be," he answered quietly.

"It's you who shouldn't be here," the other interloper said. He was a grizzled old man. "This is a restricted area."

"Who are you?" the Doctor demanded. "This entire planet should be automated."

The girl frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"What year do you think this is?" the old man said over the end of her question.

"Isn't it a hundred and ninety nine thousand five hundred thirty two of the Common Era?" the Doctor asked, genuinely confused.

"You're fifty years off," the old man said. "This factory world has been inhabited for thirty years now."

The Doctor blinked. "I'm… sorry. I didn't realise. But that still doesn't answer my question. Who are you?"

"Who are we?" the girl asked. "We're Security Section. Who the hell are _you_?"

"I'm the Doctor," he said and then he nudged Sophie.

"I'm Sophie," she added.

"We're just travellers," the Doctor finished.

"You're trespassers is what you are," she said to them, before turning to the old man. "The Managers won't be happy with this. They got past the security systems, the patrols, the checkpoints, somehow they got into the main connecting corridor without even raising any alarms…"

The old man nodded, never once taking his gaze, or the aim of his rifle, off of them. "You're right."

"Maybe if we report them?" the girl asked, as though uncertain. The Doctor had a feeling that this was unusual for her, that normally she'd be the first to take command of any situation.

Sophie looked to the Doctor, but he was frowning, as if lost in thought. Rolling her eyes, she decided to take the initiative. "There's no need to report anyone! You saw the big blue box in the corridor, right? That's ours, we can just—"

The Doctor nudged her again, harder. "Shut up," he said, quickly.

"Actually—Doctor, was it?—I want to hear what she has to say," the old man said, smirking.

Sophie didn't say a word.

A few moments later, the other woman cracked. "Come on, Raflog. Let's get them to security. Then we can contact the Managers. You never know… maybe they'll promote us this time."

Raflog, the old man, reached into his ragged clothing. "You're right, Jenna." He pulled out a small scanning device, and ran it over the two of them.

The Doctor tensed, and Sophie swallowed. "Can't we go anywhere without getting in trouble?" she whispered to him.

"Shut up!" barked Jenna.

"She's human," Raflog announced after scanning. "Him? Not so much. Hang on, I'll transmit the readings to the Managers."

Jenna moved her rifle. "Come on, you two. You're in big trouble."

* * *

><p>High above, on the moon that orbited factory planet Ford XVII, a pyramidal ziggurat rose high above the landscape. Far from the paradisiacal world of jungles and tropical oceans that could be seen from the planet, it was a scorched, dead place, atmosphere choked with smoke and dust.<p>

In the ziggurat, in a control room, a pair of humans sat at controls; they wore stained jumpsuits, their skin was pale, eyes red and itchy. They barely slept, hardly ate. They were slaves, completely and utterly.

"New transmission from the planet," said one to the other; he could barely remember his name. He existed now by the moniker One; his partner was Two. "From the turbocannon factory. Intruder alert."

"I'll inform the Managers," Two said, tapping away at his controls.

"Hang on," One interrupted. "There's an attachment with the communiqué. A set of biometric readings."

Two was concerned. "Biometric readings? Why?"

One's eyes widened. "Contact the Managers now! Get one of them down here as soon as possible!"

"Why?" Two asked, even as he was summoning the Managers.

"He has two hearts," One said, shaking his head. "He has two hearts!"

He input the data into the ziggurat's systems; it took a nanosecond for the computer to register what it was seeing. The lights darkened. An alarm blared. The control room suddenly flared with light, a Manager coalescing into place behind One and Two.

One leapt to his feet. "Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I thought you should see this for yourself."

The Manager observed him through its single eyestalk. In its screeching, stilted, grinding voice, it barked "**You were correct!**"

It rolled forward, its vast bulk nudging Two out of the way. With its manipulator arm, it plugged itself into the computer systems. One shivered; in all his years in service to the Managers, he had never gotten used to their appearance. Their domed heads, with lights on either side; the lone eyestalk, its manipulator arm, its gunstick, the semi-spheroids that decorated its lower half. Worst of all, though, was the voice.

That horrific voice.

"**Identity confirmed!**" the Manager screeched. "**It is the Doctor! Exterminate! Exterminate!**"


	29. The Factory Workers: 2

'**The Factory Workers'**

_Two_

* * *

><p>Raflog and Jenna wasted no time in hustling the Doctor and Sophie inside, then back into the corridor, and then further down it, right past the TARDIS. They didn't even seem to notice it. Sophie turned to the Doctor as they passed it, wondering if they shouldn't perhaps make a break for it, but he simply shook his head, frowning.<p>

"Not just yet, Sophie," he said under his breath, and she heard the concern and worry in his voice. "Something is very wrong here."

"No talking!" snapped Raflog from behind them. "Especially you, alien."

Jenna shook her head. "No way is he an alien. He looks exactly like us!"

"Humans don't have two hearts, Jenna," Raflog said, as they continued down the corridor; their rifles were still trained on the pair of travellers. "And if they do, it's only after they've had a hell of a lot of genetic engineering, and only the military can get in on that game. Does he look military to you?"

"He's big enough to be one of them," Jenna countered.

"This is wrong," the Doctor said, and though Raflog nudged him with the rifle, he kept talking. "Anti-alien discrimination? The Fourth Great and Bountiful Empire covers a few million star systems, thousands of alien species…"

"No aliens allowed on Ford-class factory worlds," Jenna recited. "Every school kid knows that."

"No one's meant to be on a Ford-class factory world at all!"

"I already told you," Raflog said, "that changed a long time ago. This planet, all the Ford planets, are locked down. Workers live here, Managers live on the moons, and no one is allowed in or out."

"But why?"

"Because of the war," Jenna said, as though what she was saying was the most obvious thing in the world and she were talking to a mental deficient.

"What war?" the Doctor asked, desperately sorting through his knowledge of this era in history.

"_The_ war," Jenna repeated. "How do you not know about the war?"

"We've been… travelling," Sophie interjected.

"There's no way you've travelled far enough to avoid the war," Raflog said, frowning. "Every corner of the galaxy has been touched by the fighting. Billions of people have died."

The Doctor blinked. "But that isn't right? Aside from the Dalek attack on Earth a few millennia from now, this is a remarkably peaceful time in galactic history. A few minor, system-scale conflicts, but nothing galaxy-spanning."

"What are you talking about?" Jenna demanded.

Sophie ignored her, and the rifle she held. "What do you mean, Doctor?"

"I mean that either something is messing with history," he said to Sophie, and then looked to Raflog or Jenna, "or someone is feeding you two misinformation."

Raflog snorted. "You're the one with the misinformation, Doctor. The Managers provide every Worker with a top class education. Call it compensation for not being able to leave."

The Doctor frowned. "But that's wrong. It's all wrong! I have been known to get my history wrong, but never this wrong. These factory worlds were never inhabited on a wide scale. How many people did you say live here?"

Raflog cocked an eyebrow. "Four billion."

"Four billion!" the Doctor repeated, shocked. "How could four billion people possibly live on a planet that polluted, that dangerous?"

Sophie was shaking slightly now, unnerved by the Doctor's apparent confusion. He'd always seemed so grounded, so knowledgeable; able to judge the year just by sniffing the air, to tell which planet they were on just by the feel of the ground beneath his feet. She was sure he was bluffing most of the time, hiding any gaps in his knowledge or ignorance on his part with bluster and a lot of words about nothing, but now he seemed genuinely bewildered. He looked lost. It was frightening.

"Enough talk!" Jenna barked. They'd almost reached the end of the corridor. Sophie saw a bank of elevators waiting before them, with another pair of people wearing the same silver uniforms as Raflog and Jenna and carrying identical rifles. Those rifles looked very nasty, and Sophie knew she didn't want to stay on the business end of one of them for very long.

One of these guards, a tall, powerful-looking man, stepped forward. "Prisoners?"

"One human, one alien," Raflog announced. "The woman's name is Sophie. The alien only identified himself as the Doctor."

The man looked Sophie and the Doctor up and down. "Well. You two are in an awful lot of trouble, aren't you?"

"Are we?" the Doctor said, sizing this new opponent up. He was a bulky, stocky man, balding, with hard grey eyes and a scar running down his cheek. Not a character to mess with, the Doctor decided. "We weren't intending to intrude…"

"Don't be ridiculous," the man said. "There's no way you could get this far into the turbocannon factory complex without knowing you were entering a restricted area. You would have had to sneak past seven security checkpoints, a dozen armed guards…" he trailed off, noticing the distracted look in the Doctor's eyes. "Something wrong?"

"Turbocannons?"

"What's a turbocannon?" Sophie asked the Doctor quietly.

"An enormous weapon," the Doctor explained quickly, "capable of punching a hole in a planet's crust from a matter of light years away."

Sophie blinked, surprised, but nodded.

Jenna and Raflog had watched this brief exchanged intently. "How do you not know what they are?" the young woman demanded, but the Doctor ignored her in favour of Raflog's question.

"Yes, turbocannons. So what?" the man said, somewhat confused.

"But that's not right either," the Doctor muttered, shaking his head.

"What do you mean 'it's not right'?" Raflog asked, but his tone wasn't as gruff. Perhaps he'd seen the Doctor's evident confusion, and it was affecting him in the same way it was affecting Sophie.

"Does it matter?" Jenna interjected. "Look, Raflog, I don't know why you've been letting this alien blabber on as much as he has been, but you know the procedure. Intruders are to be arrested, aliens are to be reported—"

"We all know the procedure, Jenna," the new man interrupted. "I want to hear what's so strange about the turbocannons."

Sophie noticed that his entire demeanour had changed; instead of trying to intimidate the Doctor, he was trying to coax information from him. She realised that he must think that they were part of something larger; on a mission, perhaps. This wasn't just about two intruders, she realised; she'd been travelling with the Doctor long enough, and ran afoul of enough security forces, to know a trained interrogator when she saw one.

"There shouldn't be a turbocannon factory on Ford XVII," the Doctor said. "On any Ford-class factory world. There shouldn't be any weapons manufacturing of any kind. The factory worlds were designed to be symbols of industrial peace, the height of human engineering prowess…"

"And they are," Jenna announced. "Turbocannons of the quality we produce here can reduce a planet to an asteroid field in less than a day, from a distance of six lightyears."

The Doctor looked horrified. "These planets were meant to produce life-saving, life-altering equipment for the entire galaxy!"

"They help us fight wars, Doctor," Jenna said, smirking. "They help us _win_ them."

The Doctor was about to speak, but the new man, who was apparently in charge, lifted a hand. "Let's get these two down to security. The Managers have been informed, and one of them is on its way down here as we speak."

"A Manager is coming here?" Raflog said, surprised.

"Good," the Doctor said. "I think it's best that I speak with one of your managers right away."

Raflog looked decidedly uncomfortable; Jenna, by contrast, looked positively excited. Elated, even.

"You'll get a chance," the commander said, but Sophie detected something akin to mocking glee in his tone. "Jenna, Raflog, take the woman down to security, and take the alien to the secure holding facilities."

Jenna snapped off a salute. "Yes, sir, Captain Donahue."

"He was carrying this," Raflog said, handing the sonic screwdriver he'd taken from the Doctor to Donahue. Donahue examined the screwdriver.

"What's this?" he asked the Doctor.

The Doctor swallowed, and looked to Sophie. He lifted an eyebrow, as if to tell her to play along, and looked back to Donahue. "A detonator."

Sophie's eyes widened as she shouted her disbelief, but that was nothing compared to the reactions of the security personnel; all four pulled their rifles up and aimed them directly at the Doctor. He didn't so much as blink, let alone take his eyes from Donahue's stony visage, who, to his credit, had not so much as blanched, or shown any sign of any reaction whatsoever, except aiming his rifle at the Doctor .

"A what?" the man growled, as though challenging the Doctor.

"A detonator." The Doctor repeated.

"Can you deactivate it?" Donahue demanded. Sophie noticed now that the colour had drained from his face, and she felt her own heart beating at a hundred miles an hour.

"See, that's the funny thing," the Doctor said, with a grin. "The second your man took that out of my hand, the countdown started. Sophie and I are safe here, as are all of you, but the factory itself? It's primed to blow with a hundred kilograms of baradium."

"Baradium?" Donahue repeated. "Where did you get baradium from? We haven't used baradium in almost two centuries…"

"I have my sources," the Doctor said, simply.

"I don't believe him, sir," Jenna said, not moving, her rifle trained directly on the Doctor's forehead.

"What?" Donahue snapped.

"He's lying. Ten seconds ago, he barely knew where he was. Now he's got a hundred kilos of baradium wired to blow the factory? I don't buy it."

"We can't risk it," Raflog said.

The Doctor nodded. "Wise man."

"Doctor…" Sophie said quietly, through gritted teeth. "What are you doing?"

"What we were meant to do, Sophie," he said, still watching Donahue. "I'm destroying the turbocannon factory."

"Shut the bombs down, Doctor," Donahue said. "Or your friend dies."

He turned his rifle from the Doctor to Sophie, who sucked in a deep breath and held it. She'd been in some tight spots with the Doctor before, from the pocket universe created to house her by the Trickster's Brigade collapsing around her to an entire skyscraper trying to kill her to a demonic cult in mediaeval Italy looking to bring about the resurrection of ancient and terrible beast, and she'd gotten through them all with barely a scrape. This, though, having a gun pointed directly at her, was new and she didn't like it at all.

"Oh, well, in that case," the Doctor said brightly, "all I need is my screwdriver." He caught his mistake quickly, and immediately corrected himself. "Uh, detonator."

"Jenna, keep her in your sights," Donahue said, and she shifted her rifle to aim at Sophie. He lowered his own weapon, and handed the Doctor the screwdriver. "There. One wrong move, and she dies."

"Receiving you loud and clear, Mr. Donahue," the Doctor said.

Sophie tried to look at what the Doctor was doing, but she found herself unable to take her eyes off Jenna's rifle. The young woman was beautiful, with dark hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. Her eyes, large and brown, would have been mesmerising were they not so cold and methodical. Sophie had no trouble believing that Jenna could kill her without a second thought, and sleep soundly for the rest of her life.

"It's simple, really," the Doctor said, lifting the sonic screwdriver. "When I say run, you run."

"What?" Donahue and Sophie said at once.

"Sophie," the Doctor said, and she looked at him. He was staring at her, right into her and she knew, suddenly, what he meant. "Run!"

He activated the sonic screwdriver, and the world went to hell. The Doctor was doing something with it that she'd never seen before; suddenly, light fixtures exploded as the air was filled with a horrid, screeching vibration. Sophie heard the solid zap of a rifle firing, but without really thinking about it she was already running. Unsure where she going, she bolted through the darkness; she felt, more than saw or heard, the Doctor following her.

She realised with a start she couldn't hear anything except a high trilling noise. She felt a hand around her wrist, and turned to see Raflog was holding her. She tried to scream, but his hand clamped over her mouth, and then she was flying. Hitting the floor, hard, she realised she was in one of the elevators; Raflog had crash tackled her to the ground, in so doing had carried her into a waiting elevator car. She was winded, and her vision became a blur. She saw the Doctor and Raflog. Saw Jenna try to lift her rifle.

Raflog hit the door controls, and the doors of the lift slid shut. Outside, Jenna fired, the energy blast of her rifle washing across the closed doors.

Feeling the momentary sensation of an elevator beginning a rapid descent, Sophie realised she was close to hyperventilating. She felt a hand on either side of her face. As if appearing from nowhere, the Doctor was before her, staring at her, mouthing something. Slowly, the words began to make sense.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded. She tried to speak, but her answer became caught in her throat. Finally, she managed "What happened?"

"I overloaded the sonic," the Doctor explained. "Shorted out the lift controls and the lights, sent out a wave of sonic energy."

"Is that why I couldn't hear?"

"Sorry about that," the Doctor said with an apologetic grin. "It was the only way I could think to distract them long enough to get you out of there."

"They were going to kill me," she said, shaking her head.

The Doctor's face fell. "Yes. They were. I'm sorry about that, I really am, but they're gone now; we got free."

Sophie swallowed and nodded. "Thank you, Doctor."

"Any time, Sophie," he said.

"Don't ever use me as bait like that again," she said, her tone growing cold.

He patted her on the head, wishing he could bring himself to hug her. "I won't. I promise."

It was then that Sophie remembered Raflog was with them. She leapt to her feet immediately, and without thinking stepped forward, grabbing the barrel of his rifle with one hand and punching him, hard, across the face with the other. Raflog stumbled, releasing his grip on the rifle, which the Doctor swooped in and grabbed, before resting a hand on Sophie's shoulder.

"Don't," he said simply. "He was helping us."

"He had a gun on us!" she protested.

"Only because I'm meant to," Raflog said from the floor, as he pulled himself up. "I'm a Security Section worker. It's my job to point guns at people."

"Then why did you help us?" Sophie demanded, her chest heaving after the exertion of disarming and clobbering Raflog. She was proud of the way she'd managed to handle herself there, actually; another of the many things she doubted she'd ever have been able to do were it not for having met the Doctor.

"Because he's not just a Security Section worker," the Doctor surmised a moment later, breaking Sophie from her reverie. "Who are you?"

Raflog blinked. "Who am I? Who are _you_? I've been with the movement since its inception and I've never heard of any operatives in this quadrant codenamed 'The Doctor' or 'Sophie'. I've never heard of anyone called Sophie at all, come to think of it."

"The movement?" Sophie repeated, confused.

"You mean to say you haven't heard of the movement?" he asked. "How is that possible? You planted explosives in the factory, you snuck past our security checkpoints… you blew my cover! Twenty years I've been in Security Section, building contacts, staying hidden, and I blew my cover for two intruders that aren't even movement operatives?"

"Of course we're in the movement!" the Doctor shouted, and threw aside the rifle, beginning to pat down his pockets. He hadn't quite gotten used to the idea that Sophie was wearing his coat yet.

Sophie realised he was going for that other favourite toy of his, the psychic paper. Blank paper with a slightly psychic circuit, it showed whoever read it whatever the Doctor wanted them to see, or whatever they wanted to see that suited his goals. She'd seem him use it with aplomb in New Tokyo and on the Archbishop's guards in Siena, where he'd called the device, quite euphemistically, 'written permission'. Reaching into one of the Doctor's coat pockets, she produced it, and handed it to him.

"Here," she said.

"Thank you," he answered as he flipped it open and showed Raflog.

Whatever was on the paper, Raflog seemed relieved. "Oh, thank God. I'm sorry I couldn't act sooner than I did… do you really have explosives in the factory?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I'm afraid not. That was just a clever lie to save our lives."

Raflog seemed deflated. "So what was your mission here?"

"Infiltration," the Doctor said.

The other man shook his head. "Look, there might still be a way for me to salvage my cover…"

"Never mind that," the Doctor waved him off. "We need to find out what's going on here."

"Doctor," Sophie added, "what about the TARDIS? It's still up there, with Jenna and Donahue and the other guy."

"Mulraney," Raflog said, supplying them with the guy's name. "Soon that whole level will be crawling with Security Section. Whatever that TARDIS of yours is, it's theirs now."

If the Doctor was worried by that piece of information, he didn't show it. Instead, he moved on immediately. "They mentioned something about Managers?"

"Yes," Raflog responded, but wasn't forthcoming with any more information.

"What are the Managers?" Sophie asked him.

Raflog raised an eyebrow. "How could you not know? The Managers control the workers. They live up on the moon, and we live down here."

"But it never used to be like that, did it?" the Doctor said.

"Of course not!" Raflog replied. "No matter what the official information channels might tell you. There never used to be any Workers at all. The factories were all automated, like you said."

"What changed?" the Doctor pressed.

Raflog shrugged. "I don't know. It just happened. I'm old enough to remember what it was like to live on the moon. My father was a chief technician, and I was apprenticed to a mechanic. My team and I were down here when we lost contact with the moon. Then a transmission came through; we were workers, now, they said, and they were Managers, and then all of a sudden whole colony ships packed with workers were arriving."

Before he could go on, the elevator came to a stop. The doors whirred open, and they found themselves faced with a cavernous, grimy room. The roar of machinery filled the air, and they were assaulted with the smells of oil and lubricant. Sophie realised with a start that they were looking onto a factory floor, crammed with people standing over machines and at assembly lines. Robots that reminded Sophie of the killer bots on New Tokyo drifted around above the industrial tableau.

"Come on," Raflog said, "we can't stay here for long. They'll get those elevators repaired in no time, and then it's open season."

"We can't stay in the factory," the Doctor said. "We need somewhere safe, a base of operations."

"For what, Doctor?" Sophie asked, confused.

The Doctor turned to his companion, and offered her a smile. "This is what I do, Sophie. Something's wrong here. Something is terribly, terribly wrong. This world shouldn't be like this, and yet somehow it is. I need to find out why. I need to set it right."

"_How_?" she demanded.

"I suppose I've got to lead the workers in an uprising," the Doctor said, and blanched as if in distaste. "Oh, God. How Bolshie."

* * *

><p>High above, Jenna found herself pulled to her feet by Donahue and Mulraney. "What the hell just happened?" she demanded, as the ringing in her ears died down.<p>

"No idea," Donahue said, pointing to the lift doors. They were scorched black by Jenna's rifle fire, but were otherwise undented. "You just kept shooting until you passed out."

"They've got Raflog," Mulraney added.

Jenna snorted. "That old prole? He's probably with them!"

"We can't leap to that conclusion," Donahue chided. "He was chasing the Doctor, once the girl got away from you."

Jenna blanched. "That wasn't my fault!"

Donahue shrugged. "Someone's going to have to fall on their sword for the Managers, and better it be you than me."

Mulraney smirked. "She's not the one that gave the terrorist back that device, Donahue. You were."

Jenna shook her head, and interposed herself between the two men. "Look, none of us have to get blamed for this! We're going to find Raflog. He can be the sacrificial lamb, even if he's not actively helping those two."

"We've got half an hour before the Managers arrive, Jenna," Donahue reminded her. "Maybe a little less. Their feathers seemed pretty ruffled by this guy's arrival."

"Which 'guy'?"

"It was the alien that worried them," Donahue confirmed.

"Then I supposed we'd better get him back, too," she said. "Should we evacuate the factory?"

Donahue smirked. "Don't bother. If he does have explosives down there, he's not going to detonate them now."

"Why not?"

Donahue stepped over to the control panel of the elevator they'd escaped in. Though the controls were burnt out, the display was clear. "Because this took them right into the guts of the factory. Mulraney, contact the drones on the factory floor. Have them seal off the area, and go through the workers one by one. Jenna, you and me will take another elevator down there, see if we can't hunt the three of them down personally."


	30. The Factory Workers: 3

'**The Factory Workers'**

_Three_

* * *

><p>The factory was busy, dark, loud and, Sophie realised with confusion, utterly freezing; even in the Doctor's thick coat, her teeth were chattering loudly. The Doctor didn't seem as fazed, though, and held her hand tight, leading her behind Raflog as they moved through the chaos of the floor.<p>

Dozens of men and women, wearing clothes that looked positively ragged next to Raflog's silver garb, stood at assembly lines, piecing together components. They barely seemed to notice the Security Section man as he ran through them, let alone the two strangers that followed him. Raflog was once again armed, which made Sophie more than a little uncomfortable.

A high-pitched whine filled the air, and Sophie looked up just in time to see a silvery metallic object shoot by overhead. It looked almost like a wasp, with a wing-like fins that featuring glowing anti-gravity drives and small thrusters, and an ourider pod hanging below the man body of the craft that resembled a stinger and housed a suite of scanners.

"Drones!" Raflog cried over the noise of the factory. He hefted his rifle, and prepared to fire, but the drone just kept flying onwards.

"What are they?" Sophie asked.

"Security cameras!" the Doctor responded. "Those pods are packed with all sorts of scanners. They hover about, taking biometric readings, constantly scanning the workforce and they're searching for us!"

"Damn it," Raflog said, "they're everywhere!"

"Like the electronic eyes in the tower on Tokyo?" Sophie asked, and the Doctor nodded. Now that she knew what it was she was looking for, she saw dozens of them above the factory floor, flying above the assembly lines; from the little robots' pods, a blue beam was shining out, running over the workers like a barcode scanner.

"There's no way I'll be able to shoot them all down," Raflog muttered.

"Don't even try," the Doctor said. "As soon as you shoot one, the others will come running, and that'll just bring Donahue and Jenna down on us even faster."

"What do we do then?" Sophie asked.

"We stay low and keep moving," the Doctor told her. "Raflog, do you know a way out of here?"

He nodded. "They'll try and lock it down, but I know a few back doors in the security system. Just follow me."

The Doctor and Sophie bent almost double, as Raflog led them through the winding factory. The workers ignored them still. "What's wrong with them, Doctor?" Sophie asked, a little louder than she would have liked, so she could be heard above the noise.

"I don't know," he said.

"They're not going to prevent three workers trying to avoid drones from escaping," Raflog answered her. "They know what being caught means."

Sophie shuddered. She didn't like the way he'd said that.

Finally, they reached the end of an assembly line, where an enormous, closed door yawned over the workers. The drones were picking up speed, now, and Sophie saw uniformed, rifle carrying men in the crowds. "This must be how the workers enter at the beginning of every shift," the Doctor explained. "Through here will be dormitories, commissaries, gymnasiums."

"They live their lives entirely inside the factory?"

The Doctor shook his head. "They must. I can't tell you how wrong this is, Sophie."

She'd been disturbed enough by the concept of behind the colony on New Tokyo, people living their entire lives inside skyscrapers, but there the conditions were much more hospitable. They had been watched every hour of every day, yes, and had placed their faith in an enormous biological computer that had turned on them, but this frozen place seemed to be some kind of industrial hell. She wondered if anyone down here had ever seen the sunlight she and the Doctor had experienced on the factory roof, barely twenty minutes before.

"God damn it!" erupted Raflog suddenly.

"What's wrong?" the Doctor asked.

"They've sealed the entire factory off. Every door has been shut down." Raflog shook his head. "I have no idea how we're going to get out of here."

"How can we reverse the seal?" the Doctor demanded. "There has to be a way. Some kind of emergency system…" He activated his screwdriver, pointing it at the door controls. "Damn it, it's deadlocked."

"Well, if there was an explosion the seal would reverse automatically, and all the doors would open," Raflog said with a shrug. "But you don't have any explosives."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Give me your rifle."

"What?"

"You heard me," the Doctor said, and before Raflog could say anything else, the Doctor took the rifle from him. Lifting it and placing the butt against his shoulder, the Doctor carefully sighted down the barrel, knowing he'd only have one chance to get this right. Aiming carefully, he realised that this was the first time he'd held a gun in what felt like forever. Hoping he'd be able to forgive himself eventually, he gently squeezed the trigger and blasted the nearest drone from the air. The drone fell in a rush of sparks.

"What the hell are you doing?" Sophie demanded.

"Providing an explosion!" the Doctor answered, swinging the rifle up. He squeezed the trigger, and an energy blast tore from the barrel. The nearest flying drone exploded spectacularly. This time, the workers stopped, looking up in shock; the rest of the drones began to flock towards the flaming wreck of their fellow as it plunged towards the ground.

The Doctor tossed aside the rifle, which slid across the floor.

"That's my gun!"

"You won't need it!" the Doctor answered, and once again pulled out his sonic screwdriver. Aiming it upwards, he pointed it towards the cluster of drones that had appeared where he'd shot the first, and activated it. "Hold on, just have to find the right frequency…"

Through gritted teeth, he hummed something, before shouting "Gotcha!"

The drones wheeled about, their scanning beams sweeping across the mass of workers, towards Raflog, the Doctor and Sophie, when suddenly, one exploded. Then another. Then another. Soon, they were falling from the air in clusters and within moments they had all clattered to the factory floor.

"Just a matter of finding the right frequency to excite their antigrav fuel cells," the Doctor said, with a grin. "Single-state fuel is remarkably stable, unless you resonate the materials of the reservoir at just the right frequency… then, kablamo!"

"Kablamo?" Sophie repeated, her tone gently mocking, her eyebrows raised.

For the first time, she noticed that the Doctor's face was streaked with soot and grime from their run through the factory, and that she must be just as filthy.

"Big bang," he repeated, as though she hadn't understood him.

Finally, the last drone exploded; the automated danger sensors on the factory floor finally picked up the smoke caused by the damaged drones, and alarms started to blare. Workers streamed towards but, Sophie saw, so were the armed Security Section men.

"Come on, come on," Raflog muttered, playing around with the door controls. "Open!"

Sophie turned, looking over his shoulder, just in time to see the readouts flick from orange to purple.

"Got it!" he cried as the door slid open. "Come on!"

Sophie, the Doctor and Raflog were the first through the open doors, followed by a clutch of factory workers fleeing from the damage on the floor. Behind them were the armed Security Section personnel.

Keeping their heads down, the three ran, but the Doctor asked "Where are we going?"

"To waste processing!" Raflog answered over the clamour of the fleeing workers.

"Waste processing?" Sophie repeated.

"The sewers!" the Doctor translators.

Disgusted, but not surprised, Sophie was about to answer when a shout filled the air. "Get down!" roared a voice from behind them, the direction of the factory.

Sophie turned, just in time to see a leading Security Section man heft his rifle. The Doctor grabbed her, and threw her to the ground. Raflog leapt atop them, as the rifle discharged. The factory workers screamed or fell back, most dropping to the ground.

"Nobody move!" the same man roared.

The Security Section personnel were starting to move among the crowd. Raflog looked to the Doctor and Sophie, and shrugged in an almost apologetic way. "I've got the intruders!"

"What?" Sophie exclaimed.

"Over here!" Raflog said, pointing to them.

The lead Security Station man approached them, and as he drew closer, Sophie saw that it was Donahue.

"You're lucky, Raflog," he said, looking at the Doctor and Sophie. "Jenna was convinced you'd gone over. That you'd joined the movement."

Around them, the workers, wearing torn rags, their faces streaked with soot, peered at them with equal parts fear and curiosity. None of them, she realised, looked at the Security Section personnel. They were clearly terrified of them.

Donahue aimed his rifle at the Doctor. "Come on," he said. "Get up."

The Doctor sighed, and was about to haul himself to his feet, when Raflog took the barrel of Donahue's rifle in both hands, and with an almighty heave forced it back into Donahue's face. Even over the sounds still echoing from the factory floor and the blaring of the alarms, Sophie heard the cracking of the bigger man's nose. He crumpled face forward, unconscious, and suddenly Raflog had the rifle and was firing indiscriminately over the heads of the crouched workers, screaming incoherently.

Sophie could scarcely believe what she was seeing, but she felt a hand around her upper arm.

She turned to see one of the workers, a girl who couldn't have been more than sixteen. "Come with me," she whispered. Sophie saw the girl's other hand was clutching the Doctor's arm.

Before she could think, they were running, and the great mass of workers was following them. Raflog was among them she saw, rifle still in hand. In the confusion, she caught a glimpse of the corridor behind them, littered with the bodies of fallen Security Section personnel.

Had the adrenalin not been flowing, she would have been sickened by the tableau.

* * *

><p>Jenna and her small cadre of armed Security Section men reached the exit just as Raflog started firing. She threw herself against the wall, ordering her men to do the same, as energy blast after energy blast flew from the door way. Finally, it stopped, and she and her men flew around the corner. She saw her errant partner flee with the workers, and tried to take aim, but he disappeared into the gloom.<p>

"Damn it!" she cried.

"Should we go after them, ma'am?" one of her men asked. She was a patroller, a mid-ranked Security Section officer, and she'd been given command of a squad by Donahue when they arrived on the factory floor. Normally, her job just involved her and Raflog on rounds; she'd spent hours in the company of the old man, and even though she'd never fully trusted him, she'd never have believed he was capable of such brazen treachery. A rebel! An open member of the resistance! She would make sure he'd pay.

"Of course!" she spat. "Go!"

Her squad tore off down the tunnel, but she was determined to find Donahue. She found him, unconscious, face down on the tunnel floor. Blood was streaming from his nose, which was clearly broken. She grabbed him by the scruff of his uniform and pulled him upright, slapping him once.

"Wake up, you useless lump," she growled. "Wake up!"

Donahue's eyes flickered open. "What happened?"

"Raflog got away," she said, "but that's the least of your worries. The Managers are arriving."

* * *

><p>The Doctor, Sophie, Raflog and the girl that had helped them slipped away from the workers not long after they'd run down the tunnel, into a small room that Sophie realised was a toilet. The floor was tiled, and along one wall was a row of sinks and along the other were penned off stalls.<p>

"I'm Cassia," she said, shaking Sophie's hand. "I'm a friend of Raflog's."

A petite blonde, the girl was a head shorter than Sophie and looked positively tiny next to the Doctor.

"Sophie," she managed, her voice hoarse. Her chest was still heaving from the run, and her stomach was unsettled by the killings she'd just witnessed. She'd seen people die on New Tokyo and in Siena, killed by robots and torn apart by a rampaging Vrigillian, but she hadn't seen people massacred like that before. She hoped she never would again, but she knew, with every fibre of her being, that travelling with the Doctor meant that death was never very far away.

"I'm the Doctor," he said. "We'll have time for proper introductions later, I'm sure."

"Too right," Raflog said, and headed for a covered vent inset in the wall, at the opposite end of the bathroom. Sophie was surprised that, despite the grimy nature of the little room, it smelled clean, especially compared to the all-pervasive odour of oils and lubricants on the factory floor.

The Doctor grabbed Raflog's shoulder, and Sophie saw a fire behind his eyes. It was unlike anything she'd seen in him before. It scared her more than a little bit. He spun the old man around, and jabbed a finger into his chest. "You didn't need to kill those men."

Raflog's eyes widened. "Are you kidding me? They had us cornered. They would have killed every one of those workers to find us. Besides, who was it that pretended to have the whole factory wired up to blow? Who let Donahue hold a rifle to his friend's head?"

Sophie shivered, remembering that particular event none too fondly. Still, she realised that they were running out of time, and that the Doctor was choosing a particularly inopportune moment to push his pacifistic views on the man that had been running around with a rifle. "We don't have time to argue! Raflog can't have gotten all of those Security Section bozos, so we need to keep moving. What's the plan?"

"This vent leads directly past the main waste channel out of the factory. There's a weak panel right above it, so we can get in even if the factory's in lockdown," Raflog answered. "It's our best bet to get out of here."

The Doctor nodded, thoughtfully.

"We don't have another option," Cassia piped up.

The Doctor arched an eyebrow at her. "I don't completely understand what's going on here. I don't, for example, understand how there's people in a factory that's not meant to have any people in it, how there's a factory that makes weapons on a planet that's meant to be dedicated to peace, and I do not understand how there are human beings, with anti-alien prejudice, on a planet that is meant to be completely devoid of human waste, but there is one thing I do understand, and I understand it completely. You, Cassia, are much too young to be getting involved in something as dangerous as this."

Cassia snorted. "Too late for that, Doctor. I'm in up to my eyeballs. Same as Raflog here. So's everyone in the factory."

The Doctor rounded on Raflog. "Why?"

"Because of you," Raflog said. "You infiltrated the factory, you got caught. You outed me and Cassia as being members of the resistance. Once the Managers get wind of this, they'll launch a full scale investigation. Security Section, factory floor."

"Besides," Cassia said, "I'm not too much older than her!"

The Doctor followed the girl's gaze to Sophie, and she saw a dark, regretful expression cross his face. Hurt tinged his words as he said, "You do not have to remind me of that."

Sophie knew that he regretted putting her in danger, placing her in the line of fire on alien worlds in the depths of history, but she'd made the choice to travel with him, and she'd accept the consequences of that. She was about to say something comforting to that effect, but she didn't get the chance.

"At this rate," Raflog interrupted, "we'll be lucky if the Managers don't have Security Section exterminate every last one of those workers."

The Doctor was taken aback. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"What's wrong, Doctor?" Sophie asked, her own worries fleeing from her mind. She'd only seen that look in his eyes once before, back when they'd first met, with time in their shared bubble universe quickly running out. It was a look of abject terror, and though she'd been scared plenty of times since she'd been travelling with him, nothing terrified her like seeing that look in his eyes.

"That word," he said, as though he were having difficulty even comprehending it.

"Which word?" Sophie asked

"'Exterminate'," he clarified. "Some very, very old enemies of mine _like_ that word. They like it a lot."

"I thought you didn't know who the Managers were," Raflog said.

"I don't," the Doctor said. "Lots of people use that word, I suppose. It's just unsettling to hear it, especially after a day like this."

Cassia, who was hard at work trying to pry the vent cover free, turned back to the others. "Are you guys going to help me, or what?"

"Sorry," the Doctor said sheepishly, shaking himself out of his stupor. He went to help the girl, as Sophie turned to Raflog. He knelt beside Cassia and began to sonic the screws keeping it against the wall.

"What happens when we get out of here?"

"Cassia and I will take you to a movement sanctuary," he said. "You should be safe there."

"_Sophie_ will be safe there," the Doctor corrected, as finally successfully pulled the vent cover off. He and Cassia tossed it aside, and the petite girl readied herself to lead them out. "I'll be heading right back here."

Cassia looked at him, absolutely shocked. "Are you crazy?"

"Probably," the Doctor replied. "There's something very important to me up there. I need to get it."

"That TARDIS thing?" Raflog asked. "It's lost, Doctor. Move on."

The Doctor's eyes were aflame. "That's not going to happen, Raflog. I don't really care if you come back with me, but I need to get back to the TARDIS. Sophie needs to get back to the TARDIS. Neither she nor I belong here, and I need to get her to safety. After that, I'm going to help you and your movement bring down the Managers."

"Get me to safety?" Sophie protested. "Doctor, I'm here with you. For the long haul."

"You don't understand how dangerous this situation is, Sophie," the Doctor replied. "Nothing is right here. Whatever this movement it is, their goals aren't peaceful. This isn't one alien we're fighting, not one enemy, it's history gone wrong."

"Wait," Cassia said before Sophie could respond, "you're not a part of the movement?"

The Doctor seemed to straighten. "I'm the Doctor."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Raflog asked.

"No one will ever know," Sophie said, as the Doctor gave Cassia a gentle shove towards the open vent.

Cassia crawled in, and the Doctor stopped Sophie before she went to follow. "I have no idea what's going on here, Sophie," the Doctor said, "but I have some theories, and I need you to promise me right now that you will do what I say."

"But Doctor!" she began to protest, only for him to cut her off with a hard stare.

"Sophie, promise me," he said, his tone leaving no room for arguments or excuses. His hard expression cracked then, and his countenance melted, just for a moment. "Please."

She nodded. "I promise, Doctor."

He grinned. "Excellent! Now get after Cassia. We don't have long."


	31. The Factory Workers: 4

'**The Factory Workers'**

_Four_

* * *

><p>The Manager glided forward from the hold of the shuttle that had brought it down from the moon, and Jenna twitched involuntarily as it rolled past. The shuttle itself was little more than an aerodynamically streamlined tube with an engine strapped to it, scorched and scarred by hundreds, thousands of atmospheric re-entries<p>

Adrenalin coursed through her at the very sight of the creature; she knew how dangerous it was, how powerful and deadly. All it needed to do was turn its gunstick on her and fire to kill her. Standing with a guard of honour of a dozen Security Section men, with the shamed, bloodied Donahue standing well back, she chided herself for her minor display of weakness, but it was hardly surprising.

She'd heard that the Managers were capable of vaporising an entire building with a single blast from that weapon, but that they turned down the power of just enough to kill a human being with the maximum possible amount of pain. They were sadistic, evil creatures, but they were in charge. It was how the system worked; workers, Security Section, then the Managers.

Even though she was a veteran of the Security Section, she was still a patroller; dealing with Managers was hardly in her job description, and not an experience she savoured or enjoyed.

She'd seen Managers only a few times, and every time she had it had meant something had gone wrong; a major accident on the factory floor, consistent failures to meet quotas, a traitor amongst the ranks of the Security Section. The last time she'd seen a Manager, the thing had turned its powerful gunstick on a dozen Security Section men.

They'd died screaming in agony.

The Manager came to a stop directly before Donahue, and examined him with its eyestalk. A few painful seconds dragged past, before it spoke. "**Report!**"

Donahue looked down, as though searching for the words. "The turncoat Security Section man, the alien, and his friend," he paused, swallowing, the fear evident in his cracking voice. Taking a breath, he continued. "They escaped, sir."

The Manager slid back a pace. The air turned electric with the tension. It was clear from its demeanour, even inside that inscrutable burnished bronze armour, that it was unimpressed.

"**This is unacceptable!**"

"Yes, sir," Donahue said, and Jenna heard the falter in his voice. Was he crying?

"**He must be found at once!**"

Jenna stepped forward. "Pardon me, sir, if I may. The alien and his friend escaped onto the factory floor. They destroyed the drones, triggering a panic, and then escaped Donahue."

The Manager's eyestalk swung towards Jenna. It watched her for a second, before turning back to Donahue.

Donahue looked at her above his bloody nose, eyes wide at the betrayal. Jenna felt no sympathy for him; he must have known it was coming. She stared him down, and finally he cast his gaze to the floor of the landing platform.

"**Failure of this magnitude will not be tolerated!**" The Manager's gunstick pivoted upwards toward's Donahue's head. "**Exterminate!**"

"Wait!" Donahue cried. "It was her partner that helped them escape!"

The Manager halted, its eyestalk turning back to Jenna. "**Irrelevant,**" it decided at long last, before crying "**Exterminate!**"

The blast from the gunstick lit up the landing deck, so bright that Jenna had to shield her eyes. For the briefest of seconds, she thought she saw Donahue's skeleton silhouetted against the flash. It was the screaming, though, that really cut into her. Tortured, agonised shrieks as every nerve ending was fried simultaneously, as every pain receptor fired off at once, continuously, until finally, death came. It lasted only a few moments, but she was sure that death had been a mercy for the man.

Donahue's body, blackened and smoking, fell to the decking.

The Security Section personnel, as one, took an involuntary step back, but Jenna was rooted to the spot. She realised she was shaking, but didn't even try to stop.

"**You will find the Doctor,**" the Manager said, and Jenna realised it was talking to her.

She coughed before she answered. "Sir?"

"**You are in command now,**" the Manager informed her simply. "**I will stay and make certain there are no more failures!**"

Jenna nodded, mutely, unable to take her eyes off Donahue's remains. She'd been expecting that, hadn't she? His extermination? Nothing could have prepared her for seeing that painful death up close, though.

She coughed, cleared her throat, took a deep, calming breath, and nodded again. "Allow me to escort you to the security control room, Manager."

"**This is acceptable**," the Manager screeched.

Struck dumb, Jenna led the way. Behind her, two Security Section men grabbed Donahue's body by his arms and dragged him away, while the other men remained to guard the shuttle.

* * *

><p>The vent was filthy and cramped, but Sophie found it infinitely preferable to being under the sights of Donahue and Jenna's rifles, and it was definitely a step up from the cold, industrial chaos of the factory floor. She was already worried that she'd never be able to get the stench of lubricant out of her skin. She realised the ridiculousness of that thought considering everything that had been going on, and was more than a little disturb at the disconnect she felt from their surroundings.<p>

In Siena and New Tokyo, despite the danger she'd faced, everything had still felt like a rollicking adventure; things had been dangerous, yes, but the fantastic had outweighed the danger. Here, on Ford XVII, however, there was nothing fantastic at all; just the rundown industrial hell they

"Just keep crawling," Cassia said from the front of their small procession.

"I wasn't intending on stopping," Sophie answered.

"It's not far to go," Raflog said from behind her.

Remembering how she'd punched him just a few minutes ago, Sophie blanched. "I'm sorry about that thing in the elevator, by the way," she told him.

"Don't worry about it," Raflog responded. "I can't imagine having a rifle aimed at you is the best fun."

"It's not," the Doctor informed him, sounding distinctly annoyed.

"I wasn't talking to you, mate," Raflog shot back. "You seemed awfully comfortable with a rifle back there."

"I'm never comfortable with guns," the Doctor replied.

"We're here," Cassia announced.

Sophie leaned around the Doctor, trying to get a view. She saw Cassia was crouched over another vent hatch, this one in the floor of the tunnel. She couldn't see what was down there, but she could certainly smell it.

"God, it stinks!" she shouted.

"Security Section won't be far behind us," Cassia said, as she began to pull the vent upwards. "It's the sewers or the rifles."

"It's not too bad," the Doctor told her. "Only about ankle deep."

* * *

><p>The security centre of the turbocannon factory was a large room, dominated by banks of screens on every wall. A team constantly monitored the security feeds; just an hour ago, it was here that Jenna and Raflog had first seen the Doctor and Sophie on a camera, and here that Donahue had sent them down after them.<p>

As Jenna returned, now, escorting a gliding Manager, she noticed that the team, at their stations, stiffened as one. They tried not to look at her, and desperately avoided the attentions of the Manager. All of them except Mulraney, wearing a headset and directing the search for the escaped intruders.

"Welcome to security, Manager," Mulraney announced.

The Manager slid past Jenna, and stared down its eyestalk at Mulraney. "**Your greetings are unnecessary. What is the status of the Doctor?**"

"Um, we…" he trailed off, looking to Jenna for help. Clearly, this was the first time he'd come face to face with a Manager. Well, face to eyestalk. Jenna just shook her head. He swallowed, composing himself. "Our officers are sweeping the workers' quarters for the intruders, but so far no luck. We've had a full census of workers still on site, and we've identified two missing personnel. The traitor Raflog, and a girl named Cassia."

A hologram flared into life, generated from Mulraney's terminal. It displayed the employee file pictures of Raflog, grizzled and grey, and this girl, Cassia.

"I think it's safe to assume they're together," Mulraney said.

"**Your assumptions are unimportant,**" the Manager growled. "**The only priority is finding and exterminating the Doctor!**"

Jenna couldn't contain her curiousity any longer. "Who _is_ he? The Doctor. Why is he so important?"

The Manager's eyestalk swung towards her. She noticed its gunstick twitch. It came a few inches closer. She could feel… what was that? Some sort of passion, some kind of fire, burning beneath that armour. Hatred. Pure hatred.

"**The Doctor must be exterminated,**" it declared, before turning back to Mulraney. "**Contact all other factories. All Security Section workers are to join the search. As soon as he is found, exterminate with extreme prejudice!**"

Jenna frowned. "All of the factories? Planet wide?"

"**Affirmative,**" the Manager confirmed. "**Where was the Doctor first detected?**"

"Sir, with all due respect, he's just one saboteur! We still need to meet quotas, control the workers…"

The Manager wheeled about, advancing on her with clear intent. "**You will do as ordered! You are a Worker! I am a Manager! Exterminate the Doctor!**"

She swallowed, noticing that her knees were suddenly weak. "Yes, sir." The room had fallen dead silent. "The Doctor was found in the connecting catwalk, linking the main factory to the loading docks."

"**You will take me there!**" the Manager ordered.

Jenna had always thought of herself as somewhat heartless, but she'd never been driven by anything as remorseless and cruel and singleminded as rested in the core of that Manager. What was in its heart? She realised she didn't want to know. She resolved to just follow orders. She wasn't going to end up like Donahue.

When the Manager stopped in front of an enormous blue box with a light on top and what looked like windows around its upper circumference, Jenna was shocked. She hadn't seen it before, and its appearance more than surprised her; it deeply disturbed her. What else, she wondered, had she missed?

"What the hell? How did I miss this?" she asked of no one.

The Manager swung its eyestalk towards her, but said nothing. Apropos of nothing, it fired its gunstick. Jenna threw herself to the floor without even thinking, but the lack of agony she felt as she pulled herself to her feet betrayed the fact that she hadn't been shot.

The Manager had instead fired at the blue box, which appeared to be, miraculously, completely undamaged.

There was something changed about its manner; even as it had seem manic before, now it seemed positively about to burst. Something was very wrong with it.

It stood their in silence for a few more seconds, as though studying the box.

"What is it?" she asked.

It ignored her. Then, suddenly, the air seemed to vibrate. A noise erupted, as if from nowhere, and a brilliant white light enveloped the blue box, which vanished a moment later. A faint scent pricked Jenna's nose as the light died away. "A transmat!" she said, shocked. "But no one uses a transmat! They're illegal!"

The Manager simply turned about and glided up the corridor, back towards the lifts.

* * *

><p>Far beneath Jenna and the Manager, the Doctor and Sophie were picking their way through the sewers beneath the turbocannon factory, Cassia and Raflog leading the way.<p>

"Doctor," Sophie said, tugging at his sleeve, "can you please just explain to me what the hell is going on?"

He paused.

She'd known him for only a little while, really, but it felt like she'd known him for much longer; maybe it was because, for a while there, they'd literally been the only people in the universe. Maybe it was just a natural result of gallivanting through time and space with someone. Maybe that's just how it happened; maybe you just… fell in trust with them. She couldn't shake the feeling, though, that there was something he wasn't telling her.

"Later, Sophie," he said. "I promise."

She sighed. The sewers were surprisingly spacious. Still, she was happy she'd gone with boots when she'd gotten dressed aboard the TARDIS, and even though she'd gotten somewhat used to the stench, she knew it would probably be sticking in her nostrils for a while.

Still, that wasn't what worried her the most.

She'd been an ordinary girl. An orphan, sure, and she'd never quite felt like she'd fit in, but she'd been normal. She'd been going to university, she'd worked in a shop. She'd carved a life out for herself, until this man, this wonderful, crazy man, a Time Lord with two hearts and a magic box that could take her anywhere in all of time and space, had quite literally fallen out of the sky. Since she'd met him, in a collapsing bubble universe created around her by a being called the Trickster, she'd had one adventure after another, and the only constant in her world, which now, after so many years of grinding, crushing monotony, was different every day, had been him.

It was more than trust. She depended on him. She needed him. In that bubble universe, she'd asked him again and again if she was insane, if she was losing her mind, and every time he'd just smiled at her and answered honestly. He didn't know.

She'd asked him about his honesty, some time after that, and he told her that he had spent so many lifetimes obfuscating, avoiding the truth, only answering with the minimum of necessary information. He'd told her that he'd only ever tell her the truth; as much as he knew and no less. He'd warned her that it might be scary.

She'd seen a universe collapse around her. Scary? She could handle scary.

"Doctor," she said, her voice low. They were still following Raflog and Cassia, but the two had now pulled ahead of them, and were out of earshot. "You promised me you'd tell me the truth. The whole truth."

"And nothing but the truth," the Doctor finished, in a mock American accent.

Sophie just looked at him, clearly unimpressed. "Doctor."

His shoulders slumped. He seemed to deflate. Still, he smiled, and it was a warm, genuine smile. She was glad to see it. "I'm sorry. We haven't really had time to talk, had we?"

"No," she said, "we haven't."

The Doctor sighed. "I've been in this era before. Well, not quite this era, but close enough to it. The year two hundred thousand, actually, using the calendar you're used to."

"And?" she prompted when he didn't elaborate further.

"And nothing," he answered. "Things were wrong. Like they are here. There was misinformation. Someone was working to disrupt humanity's progress. I helped put things right."

He didn't seem at peace with that response. "There's more to the story," Sophie surmised.

"Yes," the Doctor said, with another sigh. "I didn't see all the signs. I missed… I missed them. What I thought I set right actually accelerated a whole other thing. An old enemy of mine, the Daleks. They took advantage of the chaos. Maybe they _caused_ the chaos. Maybe they were playing a long game."

"The Daleks?"

The Doctor turned to her, and she saw a look in his eyes she hoped she'd never see again. It was a haunted look, a lost look. It chilled her to the bone. "I thought I'd killed them. I thought I'd finished them off. God knows, I'd thought that plenty of times before, and they'd come back every time, so I don't know why I was so sure this time. They'd taken everything from me, and I thought I'd finally locked them away forever."

"The Time War?" Sophie asked, remembering what the Doctor had told her about his own people. They'd only managed a brief conversation, after the chaos of shutting down the AI in New Tokyo, but she'd learnt enough. She knew that he was the last of his kind, that the loss of his people, however morally questionable their actions may have been, weighed heavily on him.

"Yeah," the Doctor said, and she heard the emotion behind the answer. "Point is, they tricked me. They attacked Earth, killed millions of people. I lost friends to them. Old friends, new friends. They killed. I lost everything, all over again."

"And you think they're here? Now?"

The Doctor considered for a moment. "I don't know," he answered, and she could tell it was the truth. "I hope not, Sophie, I really do, but I just can't tell you. It seems fishy. Too much is wrong. I haven't visited one of these factory planets before, but I know enough about this era to know that everything Jenna said was just plain wrong. That Jenna and Raflog and Cassia and the rest are even on this planet? That's wrong. That there are weapons being produced on a Ford-class factory planet? _That's_ wrong! I need to find out why. And if it's the Daleks, I need to stop them."

"But why? Why's it so important?"

The Doctor's eyes were aflame once more as he spoke. "The Daleks were the creations of an genocidal madman, but they were far beyond even that evil. He bred all emotion from them, left behind only hate, and they took that hate to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. All of time and space was touched by their hatred. Not genocide. Omnicide. They didn't want to wipe out a single group. They wanted, they _want_, to wipe out everything that isn't Dalek."

Sophie shuddered. "There were people like that in Earth's history."

The Doctor looked at her. "Hitler has nothing on a Dalek, Sophie."

She tried not to be offended, but something about that statement bothered her. "Doctor, look, I'm not trying to one up you or anything. I'm just saying that I know what you mean. I can handle scary. I can handle evil. You don't need to protect me."

He stopped in his tracks, and pulled her into an impromptu hug. "All I ever do is protect my friends, Sophie," he said, burying his face into her hair. Finally, he released her. "Come on, let's catch up to Cassia and Raflog. They're probably wondering where we've got to."

* * *

><p>Behind them, in the bathroom that Cassia had pulled the Doctor and Sophie into, a pair of Security Section personnel, armed with rifles, peered into the vent. One looked at the other.<p>

"Can you smell that?"

"It's…" the other man sniffed. "It's sewerage."

"Yeah," the first said, lifting his eyebrow.

"Not that surprising in a toilet, mate," the other scoffed.

"Yeah," the first agreed, "but that's raw sewerage, that smell. I think we just figured out how they escaped. Contact Mulraney. Tell him we've found our escapees."

"Right away, boss," the other man said with a grin.

* * *

><p>"Here we are!" Cassia announced. They'd reached a fork in the sewerage tunnels, but both paths were blocked off with metal bars.<p>

"Um, where can we go from here?" Sophie asked.

"Up there," Cassia said with a grin, pointing upwards. They was a small manhole in the roof, with what looked like an extendable ladder tucked up there.

"Where are we?" the Doctor asked.

"We're out of the factory's precinct," Raflog explained. "Can you help me give a Cassia a boost so she can reach the ladder?"

"Oh," the Doctor said, grabbing his sonic screwdriver. "Don't worry about it."

Lifting the device, he activated it. The ladder drooped from the ceiling, splashing into the slowly moving stream of human waste at Sophie's feet. Grinning he made a hand motion inviting her to climb up, and she was only too grateful to be getting out of there.

It didn't take her long to scale the ladder, and she found herself in a cramped, tidy room. It looked almost like a janitor's cupboard.

Cassia was the next up, and she favoured Sophie with a smile, which she could only guess was a rare occurrence from the serious-looking girl. Together, they helped lift Raflog from the hole, and then finally they were joined by the Doctor.

"You kept my coat clean, didn't you?" the Doctor asked, smiling at Sophie.

She looked down at the hem of the long black garment, and saw that it was mercifully free of excrement. "Looks like it. Okay, so where to now?"

"The movement has a small colony nearby," Cassia explained. "It's almost completely self sufficient. It was set up to house runaways and fugitives. Like us, now, I guess. Come on."

She moved for the door out of the cupboard, and Sophie and the Doctor went to follow her. Raflog snagged the Doctor's elbow, however.

"Doctor," he said, "I know you're not a member of the movement. That much is obvious. You have, however, endangered my life, the life of every worker in that factory, and, most importantly, Cassia's life. Can you really help us?"

The Doctor's expression darkened. "Yeah, I can help. I don't know how _much_ I can help, but I can help."

Raflog shook his head. "She's only a girl, Doctor. So many of the men and women working in these factories are just kids. I've seen what the Managers can do. They're brutal. Jenna… Jenna will do whatever it takes to appease them, and so will the rest of the Security Section personnel. They'll stop at nothing to get promoted, to be elevated to the moon."

The Doctor was about to ask a question, when Cassia stuck her head back into the cupboard. "Are you two coming?"

"Yeah," Raflog answered. "We're coming now."

Cassia disappeared, and as Raflog moved for the door, the Doctor said "I'll do my best, Raflog. I promise."

Raflog only said "I hope that's enough," before walking away.

The Doctor sighed, and followed. Outside, in a dark, concrete corridor, Sophie was waiting for him. Cassia and Raflog were already striding away, when she gave him a quick hug. "I heard that, Doctor," she said. "We'll help them."

He offered her a smile. "I hope we can, Sophie. I really, really do."

* * *

><p>The Manager led the way into the small bathroom. Jenna and Mulraney flanked it, both armed with long-barrelled, silver rifles. The two Security Section men that had found the open vent were trembling with the excitement of seeing a manager up close and personal.<p>

The manipulator arm of the Manager, capped with a rubber semisphere, twisted. Perhaps it was running scans.

"**Traces of Time Lord DNA identified,**" it reported a moment later. "**They escaped through here.**"

It turned to Jenna. She wanted to shy away, but held her ground.

"**You will follow them!**"

She stared at the vent, and then looked back to the Dalek. "But we don't know where that leads."

"**You will obey!**" the Manager demanded. It looked to Mulraney next. "**You will prepare for the arrival of more Managers!**"

"More of you?" Jenna exclaimed, unwilling to believe her ears.

"**That is correct,**" the Manager said, and simply glided from the bathroom. Jenna moved the follow it, but decided against it. She stood at the doorway of the bathroom, however; outside, in the tunnel leading from the factory floor, rows of workers were standing, shivering, as Security Section men ran scanners over them one by one.

The Manager's eyestalk swung back to Mulraney. "**Exterminate these workers.**"

Jenna's jaw dropped. "What?"

"**Exterminate them!**" it demanded.

Mulraney keyed his headset, and gave the order. Jenna had to turn away as the rapport of the rifle blasts filled the air, followed by competing screams of panic and pain. Bodies thudded to the concrete and then, a few moments later, as the rifles powered down and the air was filled with the stench of burnt flesh.


	32. The Factory Workers: 5

**'The Factory Workers'**

_Five_

* * *

><p>In the Dalek ziggurat on the moon high above Ford XVII, One and Two sat at their consoles, exhausted and strung out, as they always were. They were busy routing information channels into the hovels and dormitories of the workers on the planet below, silent as the grave, when the door into the main facility opened behind them.<p>

They leapt to attention automatically as one of the Managers glided into the small control room, its eyestalk swinging from One to Two and back again. It paused for a moment, before announcing in the screeching, grating tones standard to it and its species, "**You will both follow me!**"

"But sir," Two protested, and even though One shot him a warning look, he went on: "If One and I don't finish operating the transmitters, the workers will have nothing to occupy them. Riots may ensue…"

"**Any riots will be quashed,**" the Manager answered. "**All rioters will be exterminated!**"

Two looked down, with something like reverent fear, at the powerful gunstick on the creature's armour. He swallowed. "Understood."

"**Come with me!**" the Manager ordered, and turned around. One and Two exchanged a concerned look, and began to follow the Manager. The silver, shining corridors of the ziggurat were cool, and obviously designed to allow the Managers ease of movement. Most of the controls, spaced intermittently along the corridors, were hemispherical inputs set into the wall, clearly designed to be used by the Manager's plunger-like manipulator arms.

Finally, it lead them through a wide circular door that irised open, and they found themselves in a small holding room, little more than a storage cupboard.

"What's that?" One asked as he beheld the tall, oblong blue box that dominated the small chamber.

**"It is a TARDIS,**" the Manager announced.

"A what?" Two asked, walking slowly in a circle around the object. It simply sat there, but something about it drew the eye; his imagination, long since dampened by the endless, gut-churning monotony of his work in the ziggurat, which mostly involved sorting through transmissions from the Security Service and routing information broadcasts to keep the populace quiet, was being reignited with every second he spent in proximity to the box.

"**That is none of your concern,**" the Manager intoned. Both the men noticed that the creature seemed utterly absorbed in the geometry of the box, its eyestalk trained intently on it.

"What do you want us to do?" One asked it.

The Manager seemed to have been broken from some kind of trance as it rounded on One. "**You will try to get inside!**"

"Get inside that?" Two asked. He rapped his knuckles against the surface of the wood. There was a comfortable-sounding echo. "But isn't it just wood?"

"**No,**" the Manager answered, and apropos of nothing it opened fire with its gunstick. Powerful energies lashed the surface of the box, and Two and One cowered away from the blast; electric energy singed the still air of the chamber, making their hair stand on end. When the attack subsided, however, the box stood still, completely unmarked.

"How is that possible?" One asked, stunned.

Two stood and went to the console against the chamber wall. The controls had been retrofitted for human hands, and he quickly ran a scan. "Extrapolator shielding!" he said, sucking in a breath. "Unbelievable!"

"Extrapolator shielding?" One asked, joining his fellow. "That's incredible! That box could withstand the explosion of a planet, or a sun going nova."

"**You will find a way to enter the TARDIS,**" the Manager ordered, and both of them swallowed at once.

"But, sir," One began, "this kind of technology is well in advance of ours. There's no way we'll be able to break through it."

"**You will find a way to enter the TARDIS,**" it repeated, turning its eyestalk on both of them, its gunstick following a moment later. "**You will find a way to enter the TARDIS or you will be exterminated!**"

With that, the creature turned away and glided out of the chamber. The door irised shut behind it, and both One and Two had the distinct sensation of being sealed in with the mysterious box.

One and Two swapped a look. "What was that about?" One asked.

"Whatever this thing is," Two said, and circled it again. "What _is_ a Police Public Call Box? I know those word, but this sign doesn't make sense."

"Whatever it is, it's important to the Managers," One said, shaking his head. "How are we going to get inside it?"

"How the hell are we meant to break through extrapolator shields? They were literally meant to protect a craft from an exploding planet, and there's no way the Managers will let us use anything with enough power to break them down."

"If a Manager's gun couldn't take the shields down, I doubt there's anything we can do," One sighed, and tapped a few controls. "Then again, if we don't, they're going to kill us."

"Don't you mean 'exterminate' us?" Two said, chuckling at his own dark joke.

"You're sick, you know that?" One said, shaking his head in annoyance. "This is our lives you're joking about here. You know that, don't you?"

"Our lives?" Two repeated. "What are our lives? Serving the Managers, keeping the workers in line. Putting our necks on the chopping block day-in, day-out doing impossible tasks for creatures that'll kill us without a second thought? Fire upon us with guns designed to hurt us as much as possible?"

One suppressed a shudder at the notion. "Don't say it, Two."

"Why not, One?" the man said, his voice getting louder. "Why shouldn't I say it? We're going to die now. You get that, right? We can't break extrapolator shielding, and the Managers don't tolerate failure."

"We'll find a way, Two," One told him, his voice shaking. Was it fear or anger? Even he wasn't sure. "We will find a way!"

Two was shaking, and there were tears in the man's eyes; One realised with a start that this was the most emotion his fellow slave had ever shown. Nervous exhaustion was the standard in the Manager's ziggurat, the one sensation that was all pervasive, that hung in the air and suffused every word, every action. The sight of that tear terrified him more than the Managers ever could; the only thing keeping him alive, keeping him from going insane, was the blanket of nothing that lay across him and everyone else who manned the ziggurat, keeping out the true nature of the horror that surrounded them and preventing despair from utterly crushing him.

One swallowed. "We have to, Two, okay?"

Two nodded. "Maybe… maybe if we can get inside this thing, we can use it."

"Use it?" One asked.

"It has extrapolator shielding," Two said, and One heard some concerning enthusiasm in his tone. "The Managers can't even get through that!"

"Be quiet!" One shouted. "Do you think they're not listening? They watch us every second, you know they do! They can hear everything you say! There's probably one right outside that door! Do you want to be exterminated?"

Two swallowed, bowed his head, almost in shame. "Of course I don't."

One nodded. "Good. Now, come on, let's get to work."

* * *

><p>The underlevels of Ford XVII were every bit as rundown and filthy as one would expect; industrial decay at its height. Everything was metal and concrete, most of it rusted and stained. Mould and garbage seemed to reign supreme. Even the chaos of New Tokyo and the filth of relative Renaissance Siena didn't compare to this.<p>

Sophie was disgusted, and though Raflog and Cassia seemed to know where they were going, she thought that they were probably lost; one street looked like the next, every trash pile looked like every other. It was just as cold out here as it had been in the factory, and Sophie was shivering despite the Doctor's coat. The Doctor, meanwhile, appeared to be completely unaffected by the cold, and Raflog and Cassia were used to it.

There didn't seem to be anyone else about, but Sophie did see evidence of human habitation; small lean-tos resting against the alleyway walls, hovels constructed out of scrap metal. She thought, against the background funk of industrial decay, of rust, oil, lubricants and chemicals, she thought she could smell meat cooking. Occasionally, there was movement in the rubbish; small, rat-like creatures peeking out of the rubble before running away.

"What are those?" Sophie asked.

"Scuttlers," Cassia answered her. "They're fast, and getting through the armour is a bit of a hassle, but they're tasty little buggers."

"Armour?" Sophie repeated, feeling a little sick to her stomach. She hadn't had much in the way of encounters with alien animal life on her travels with the Doctor, and the thought of armoured rats didn't do much to settle a stomach already troubled by the running and the fighting and the sight of the men Raflog had killed back in the factory.

"Don't worry," Cassia giggled, "there's better stuff to eat back at the colony. Much better stuff. They actually grow fresh fruit and vegetables! Have you ever had fruit? It's incredible."

Raflog scowled. "Clamp down on the enthusiasm, Cassia."

The Doctor frowned at the man. "Ignore him, Cassia. I like fruit. Especially bananas. Have you ever had a banana?"

"What's so special about fruit?" Sophie interjected, more than a little confused. "I mean, come on, it's just fruit."

"Fruit's brilliant!" the Doctor said, grinning, and there was something about the way he was talking that brought a smile to Sophie's face; an actual, proper, genuine smile that lit up the spaces between her bones that had seemed shrouded in shadow ever since their escape from the factory. "Think about it. Tasty, delicious fruit, in all the colours of the rainbow. Botany's way of showing off how many colours it knows."

Sophie rolled her eyes. "You're ridiculous."

"Yes I am," the Doctor agreed, and they shared a smile. Raflog, however, didn't look quite so impressed, even though Cassia giggled. The Doctor sensed that a bit of a rapport was beginning to develop between the two of them. "Going back to your question, though, I can't imagine that there's a lot of land on this planet that would be capable of growing fresh fruit and vegetables."

"None at all," Cassia said. "In the factories, they just shovel processed protein slop onto a plate and hand it to you. Ta-da! Dinner."

"It keeps you alive," the Doctor concluded, nodding, "but it's not exactly a filling meal."

"God, I could go for some Italian right now," Sophie said, and she was surprised she was even capable of thinking about food, considering what had happened earlier.

"Italian?" Raflog asked.

"Oh, right," Sophie said, blanching. "I forgot, we're not on Earth."

"And I'm pretty sure 'Italy' hasn't been a thing for a hundred thousand years or so," the Doctor added, quietly, before teasing, "Didn't you get enough of that in Siena?"

"Can never get enough Italian food, Doctor," Sophie answered, and even though the ease with which she slipped back into her usual joking banter with the Doctor troubled her, it was nice to see that it still existed, and it helped to break the tension. Her upset stomach was easing with every passing second, and she realised it was a conscious effort on his part to try and make her feel better. Even though it was pretty transparent on his part, she was pleased that he was making the effort, and she was especially pleased to realise that it was actually working.

"True enough," the Doctor nodded. Then his face changed completely, and she realised he was getting back to business. "This colony of yours must be pretty special if it can grow organic foodstuffs in an environment as toxic as this."

"It is," Cassia nodded. "It's…" she trailed off at a sharp look from Raflog. She coughed, before going on, in a completely different tone, "I thought I told you, it's a sanctuary for fugitives, set up by the movement…"

"Yes, yes, that's fine," the Doctor interrupted, cutting the girl off. "That's not what I mean. Where is it? Why is it necessary? And why are you taking us around in circles?"

Sophie blinked, surprised. He was right; no wonder everything looked the same. She'd seen it all before.

"We're trying to shake off pursuers," Cassia said.

The Doctor studied her intently, before saying "That's only half true, Cassia, and you know it. You're trying to disorient Sophie and I, so we can't trace our steps back to the factory. That may work on her, it may even work on the two of you, but I'm not a human, as you well know, Raflog."

The old man's nostrils flared. "So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I'm…" the Doctor frowned, considering what he was going to say next. "You have five senses, yes? A sense of taste, a sense of smell; you can see, hear and feel. You have other senses, too, a sense of balance, a sense of direction, a sense of the passage of time. Well, I have something like that, too. It's innate, hardwired into my DNA, into every cell of my body. I can sense time the way you could taste a piece of fruit. I can hear it and see it, every second of every day. I exist in time the way you exist in space."

Raflog blinked. "What are you talking about?"

"Do you remember what I said in the factory? What I've been saying ever since you found Sophie and I on the roof?" the Doctor demanded. "I've been saying that this place is wrong. Everything about it is wrong. You people aren't meant to be here, that factory is not meant to be there. You can try and disorient me by walking about in circles, but nothing you do is going to change the fact that there is something incredibly wrong happening here and I am the only hope you have of fixing it. Of even finding out what it is. Please, for the love of everything on this planet, stop playing games with me."

Raflog and Cassia shared a look, and Sophie couldn't help but grin at the way the Doctor had just overwhelmed Raflog's arguments and the games the turncoat Security Section man had been playing with them; she knew he was a Time Lord, and had some idea what that meant, but she didn't understand the extent of it. She knew he was the last surviving member of his people, that he was from the planet Gallifrey, and that his people had a much more complicated relationship with time than she could imagine.

"I can help you people, all right," the Doctor said. "I have promised Sophie that I will help you so please… just let me. Just let me help."

Cassia nodded, though Raflog looked unconvinced. "Fine," she said, "come with me, then."

"Cassia!" Raflog scolded.

"Shut up, Raflog," was all she said in response. "You've been here for decades. I get that. You're used to putting off the fight, you're used to waiting. I'm not! I don't want to spend the rest of my life sneaking things out of factories, breaking into assembly lines, pissing off Security Section one minor crime at a time. These two somehow got into the turbocannon, right past your people, and then they tricked everyone into thinking they had a detonator and were going the blow the whole place to smithereens. They did all that, and we've never heard of them."

"What's your point?" Raflog demanded.

"My point is that they can help us, Raflog! They could help us bring the Managers down, and then we get a dance to start rebuilding this planet," she hissed. "We get to rebuild our lives, stop making weapons of war. We get to be human beings again, not cogs in the great Ford XVII machine."

"Oh, I like you," the Doctor said, grinning at Cassia; Sophie recognised that as the exact same tone he'd used when they'd battled the chronivorous leech together, back in 2011. She would have felt a little pang of jealousy, she realised, had she not liked Cassia every bit as much.

Raflog's shoulders slumped. "Fine," he said, "but this is going to get us killed, Cassia. Make no mistake."

The Doctor looked around; though there was still no one else in the street, he was beginning to feel more than a little uncomfortable with their exposed position. "I'm sorry, you two, don't want to interrupt a good argument, but I really think we ought to be going."

"He's right," Cassia told Raflog. "Jenna and Security Section can't be too far behind us now. I don't know about you, old man, but I don't want to be trapped here when the Managers catch up with us."

Raflog nodded, reluctantly. "Fine."

Smiling at the Doctor and Sophie, Cassia said "This way!" and set off.

Cassia led them to what looked like an old silo. It towered at least a kilometre above them, and its casing was cracked and broken in places; in others, it had long since rusted through.

"What is this?" Sophie asked as Raflog helped through one of the rust-edged holes. The Doctor took her hand from the other side and grinned as she got through.

"Looks like an old fuel tank," the Doctor said, and sniffed the air. "At least, judging by the smell."

"That's exactly what it is," Cassia confirmed. "Used to be refuelling station for the old cargo transports that would bring in the raw materials for the factories. Robot attendants would refuel the ships, unload whatever they had aboard and send them back into space."

"Sounds pretty essential," Sophie said, as she and the Doctor helped Raflog into the Silo. "Why did they shut it down?"

"Look at how easily those walls corroded," the Doctor said, nodding to the rusted holes that peppered the structure. "Obviously, if it was just robots they had to worry about, the people in charge weren't going to bother with safety precautions. Robots are easy to replace, after all, and they knew this planet's ecosystem was going to be ruined regardless…"

Sophie frowned. "That's awful."

"Not as awful as what made the Managers shut it down," Raflog said, and the old man shivered involuntarily. "They kept it operational, even after they stopped using the robot workers. For a few years, at least, until it became too expensive to replace the workers they lost."

Sophie's eyes widened. "They're monsters."

"Yes, they are," Raflog said, his voice darkening.

"They might be much worse than that, Sophie," the Doctor said, shaking his head.

"I'm afraid I've only told you half the story," the old man in his Security Section uniform said. He was still cradling the rifle he'd held to Sophie's head only a few hours ago, but despite their history together, she found herself trusting him. He seemed like a good enough man, even if he was a little extreme in his methods.

Cassia had begun to busy herself with the rubble that littered the floor of the enormous silo, its circular wall rearing up high above them. The Doctor was observing the young woman closely.

"Then tell me the other half," Sophie said, focusing her attention on Raflog.

The old man's lips twitched. "There was an explosion. It irradiated every exposed metre for miles around, killed thousands. The Managers sent in specialists to clean up the damage, and then began to demolish the spaceport. The specialists told them that the silo was hopelessly irradiated."

Sophie was suddenly incredibly uncomfortable. "Then what the hell are we doing here?"

"They lied," Cassia shouted, as she continued to shift through the rubble.

Raflog nodded, smiling. "That they did. The Managers probably didn't mean to, but they brought smart people to Ford XVII. They repurposed the equipment they'd been given to clean up the irradiated area and tunnelled down to a cavern directly beneath the silo. They set up a generator beneath the silo, putting out an energy signature identical to the radiation they'd been sent to clean up; to any scanners the Managers might have, the place would look like a complete dead zone."

"The colony's underground," the Doctor said, nodding, smiling at the ingenuity. "Of course. That's the only way for the soil to have stayed fertile enough to allow for planting."

"Here!" Cassia announced, before Raflog could go on. The Doctor and Sophie turned back to the girl; she'd found what looked like a small remote control in the rubble. She lifted it and aimed it towards a rather large pile of rubble. The pile seemed to waver, and to Sophie's astonishment vanished entirely, revealing a small hatch in the ground.

"Close your mouth, Sophie," the Doctor said, as Sophie continued to gape. "You look like a goldfish."

She frowned, and punched him in the shoulder playfully. "What was that?"

"A shimmer," the Doctor said. "A clever little piece of holographic disguise. Easy enough to detect on a long range scan, unless, of course, there's an energy signature that looks enough like radiation to confuse a scanner. No one would know where it was unless they were actually looking for it."

"And since they'd think this place was poisonous…" Sophie began.

"No one would look," the Doctor finished for her. "Ingenious."

Cassia grinned. "The shimmer was my idea, actually. The entryway was just a hole in the ground before I came up with the idea to holographically disguise it."

The Doctor smiled appreciatively. "Good work. Now, come on, Cassia, show us this colony of yours."

Cassia led the way through the revealed hatch, followed by Sophie and the Doctor. Raflog cast one last look around the empty silo before slipping in after them. None of them noticed, high above, the small, hovering drone that had been watching the entire scene.


	33. The Factory Workers: 6

**'The Factory Workers'**

_Six_

* * *

><p>Jenna couldn't help but smile as she watched the intruders, the girl that had helped them escape her in the factory and that traitorous bastard Raflog, crawl into the hole at the floor of the silo. Her drone had recorded the entire thing, and transmitted it back to her in real time.<p>

She'd heard rumours of a hidden colony of subversives and malcontents not far from the factory. She'd always intended, one day, to go looking for it, to either prove its non-existence or find it and bring the full force of the Security Section down upon them. She'd always figured that that would be enough to earn her a promotion to the moon.

Now, here she was, on the same day that her partner had betrayed her, the same day she'd seen dozens of people executed in front of her eyes, about to deliver a crushing blow against the resistance.

She keyed her headset.

"Mulraney, it's me," she said. "I've found our escapees. Tell the Managers that they'll want to deal with this one personally."

"_What is it, Jenna?_" Mulraney answered, his voice tinny and thin over the headset.

"You know that rebel colony we've been hearing about?" she said. "I think I've found it. Even if I haven't, there's definitely a hideout here. If we move now, we can capture the intruders, Raflog and at least one subversive."

She could almost hear the glee in Mulraney's tone as he answered "Understood. I'll tell the Managers right away. I'm going to dispatch an entire phalanx of Security Section personnel to your position. Good hunting, Jenna."

There was a brief squawk of static as Mulraney cut off the transmission. Jenna removed her headset, stowing it for the moment. She checked her rifle; it was fully charged, and she was sure that she could easily take down the four of them. Still, that silo was tricky terrain, and she had no idea what kind of back up the subversives had down there.

She was taken aback by the excitement that was welling up within her. Only a few hours ago she'd watched the Manager order Mulraney to massacre dozens of workers who'd done nothing but stand by as Raflog and the intruders had escaped, and now she was actually looking forward to capturing the traitor, even though she knew exactly what would happen to him when the Managers finally caught up with him. Unbidden, thoughts of Donahue being executed came to her mind; the man had been screeching in agony as his body was cooked from the inside out.

"He deserves it," Jenna said to herself, thinking of Raflog; a traitor, a liar, an untrustworthy bastard, whose actions had all but ensured Donahue's execution. But then so had hers. "He deserved it, too."

It was all she could do to prevent the guilt from crushing her; she was torn, emotionally. She knew she should support the Managers, she knew she should hunt down Raflog and the subversives, and for the most part she was happy to do it. Then why the guilt? Why couldn't she get the thought of Donahue's execution out of her mind? Why could she still hear the screaming of the workers being massacred? Why could she still smell their burnt flesh?

Putting that from her mind, she thought instead of getting back at Raflog; the workers may not have deserved their fates, but Raflog most certainly did. She didn't like traitors. Indeed, she never had.

She swallowed. Despite her renewed resolve, however, doubt was gnawing away at her. She hefted her rifle, though, and pressed its butt against her shoulder. Jenna promised herself that she'd do what she had to do; she'd do her job. She just hoped she'd still be able to enjoy it.

* * *

><p>The Doctor and Sophie found themselves in a narrow, short tunnel hewn from the rock of the planet itself. Sophie fit in just fine, but the Doctor had to squeeze himself through, bowing his head and hunching his shoulders.<p>

"I don't think I'll ever get used to how tall this body is," the Doctor whispered to Sophie.

"I don't think I will, either," Sophie said, grinning. The Doctor was one of the tallest people she'd ever met, and his general size seemed kind of overwhelming at times; though he was definitely still in the standard human size range, he was broad-shouldered as well.

"It's not my fault you're so tiny," the Doctor said, teasing.

Sophie ignored him. "How far down does this tunnel go, anyway?" she asked their guides.

"Almost half a kilometre," Cassia answered.

"It's the only way to keep our people safe," Raflog said. "If Security Section knew where this colony was, they'd be on top of it, guns blazing, a few minutes later. The Managers would probably come and deal with it personally."

"Indeed," the Doctor agreed, his tone grim. "I'm sorry that I may have endangered them, Raflog, I really am."

"I'm sure," Raflog answered.

Sophie had had enough of the old man's gruffness. "Look, Raflog, I don't really know what your problem is, but I owe the Doctor my life a few times over now. He always tries his best, and he hasn't failed me yet. He is not going to fail you, all right?"

The Doctor seemed somewhat surprised by her outburst, but Cassia grinned. Raflog just nodded once. "Fine. Fine, whatever."

Finally, the tunnel stopped descending. It was entirely too warm and the decidedly close and stuffy. They'd reached a very small cavern, barely big enough for them all to fit inside. There was a thick metal door on the opposite side of it and what looked like a small red light glinting in the rock next to it.

"Retinal scanner," the Doctor explained to Sophie. "Scans the pattern of…"

"A person's retinas," she said, quickly interrupting. "I don't know what kind of kids you've been dragging around in the TARDIS before you invited me along, but I've actually watched TV before, you know?"

Cassia, meanwhile, had walked over to the scanner, and pressed her eye against it.

A voice issued from a hidden speaker. "_Stand by. Scanning_."

Sophie shivered at the sound of the voice, as Cassia squinted into the scanner. A few seconds later, there was a clicking noise, and Cassia stood up straight. There was a deep rumble, and slowly the door began to swing open.

"Here we go," Cassia said, and Raflog led the way through the door way, before it had even fully opened. The Doctor and Sophie followed the two of them, only to discover a small cavern all but identical to the one they just left. There were two men in here, both of them armed, and a small table with a pair of chairs in front of it an a monitor mounted on top.

"Good to see you, Raflog," the larger and older of the two men said, grinning. He holstered his weapon, and shook the Security Section man's hand. Quite apart from the silver uniforms of the Security Section and the torn, dirtied rags of the workers in the factories, they both wore simple tunics.

"And you, too, Hagren," Raflog said, smiling in response. "We've got some trouble with us, I'm afraid."

"You always do, mate," Hagren said, before studying the Doctor and Sophie. Sophie was beginning to sweat in the close warmth of the cavern. She shrugged out of the Doctor's coat and handed it back to him. "Who are these two, then?"

"The Doctor and Sophie," Cassia explained. "The Managers want them pretty bad, I think."

"They snuck past all the security at the turbocannon factory," Raflog explained. "He said he had bombs in the factory."

Hagren studied the Doctor carefully. "I've never seen him before."

"No," the Doctor said, nodding, as he slipped back into his dirtied coat, and quickly began to button it back up. "You wouldn't have. I can assure, however, that Sophie and I are both here to help."

"And how are we meant to trust you?" the younger guard, a gangly, red-haired kid with ears that stuck entirely too far out from the sides of his head, asked.

"Shut up, Vrin," Cassia said, not entirely unkindly. The kid, Vrin, went beetroot red in response. "Look. Hagren, as important as you and Raflog are, I've been sneaking in and out of factories all over the place since I was old enough to walk. Surely what I think is important."

"Of course it is," Hagren said, but Cassia spoke over him.

"I trust them," she said. "I do. This guy seems to know something, and maybe he can finally help us get it working."

"Get what working?" Sophie, the Doctor and Raflog asked in unison. The Doctor and Sophie shared an amused look, but Raflog seemed to be fuming.

"Are you serious?" Hagren said, but there was no trace of sarcasm in his tone; he was looking directly at Cassia now, his face tight with… what? Concern? Excitement? "Cassia, are you serious?"

"About this?" she asked, facetiously. "Of course I am, Hagren."

The old man nodded once. "Vrin, take them all through to the colony. I'll keep watch here."

"But Hagren," Vrin began to protest, but he was silenced with a sharp look. "All right, sir. Come on, you four."

Vrin headed for the cavern exit, and Hagren and Raflog shared a significant look; Raflog looked bewildered, but Sophie could see that his friend was doing his best to reassure him. She could only stare at Cassia, whose personality seemed to have completely changed. She and the Doctor immediately followed Vrin, and when Sophie hesitated, the Doctor turned back.

"Are you coming, Sophie?"

She nodded, feeling distinctly uneasy about something. "Yeah, Doctor."

* * *

><p>The sight of the actual colony itself was bewildering. A cavern as tall and wide as a football stadium stretched out before then; supported by braces against the cavern walls and enormous stalagmites and stalactites, the cavern was divided into three tiers. The uppermost tier, onto which the Doctor, Sophie, Cassia, Raflog and Vrin stepped, seemed mostly to be a wide walkway that ran the length of the cavern's interior.<p>

Tunnels had been cut into the cavern wall, leading away into the rock, and there were a few people standing around, chatting, going about their business. The second tier, from what Sophie could see, looked like a lot of small houses, many of them themselves cut into the rock. The lower tier, meanwhile, looked like a lush garden; replete with blooming fruit trees and ponds, it seemed to be a beautiful, peaceful space, quite the opposite of the industrial hell that dominated the planet's surface.

"Jesus," Sophie said under her breath. The entire tableau was lit but six enormous lamps bolted to the roof of the cavern, glaring down upon everything like six miniature suns. Despite that, the light was at a comfortable level, much like a nice spring day back in Newcastle. The temperature, as well, was at a reasonable level, quite hospitable compared to the heat of the tunnel and the cold of the surface. "It's incredible."

Vrin and Cassia both glowed with pride.

"This must have taken years," the Doctor said, equally impressed. "How many people live here?"

"About five hundred," Cassia said. "There are a few more colonies like this, all but self-sufficient, spread over the planet."

"All but self-sufficient?" the Doctor asked, lifting an eyebrow.

Cassia seemed to blush. "Yeah, well, occasionally the generators break down. Those sun lamps don't power themselves."

"And when that happens," Vrin said, speaking up, "Cassia goes and nicks what we need from the factories. Right under the Security Section's noses."

"Ford XVII's most wanted, eh?" the Doctor said, his tone teasing but his smile genuine.

"Careful, Doctor," Sophie said, gently nudging him. "You know how to make a girl jealous, don't you?"

"Oh, don't fight!" the Doctor protested, his face falling. "Can't stand fighting."

Sophie and Cassia shared a grin; the other girl had picked up on the fact that Sophie had been mocking him. "Settle down, you fool," Sophie said. "God, I feel like I can breathe down here, finally. It reeks up there."

"You're telling me," Cassia agreed. "Come on, we need to find Artraya."

"Who's Artraya?" the Doctor asked.

"The leader of the colony," Raflog explained. "Actually, that's here."

Sophie looked, and saw where Raflog was pointing. A tall, regal woman was striding towards them. She wore a high-collared tunic, sleeveless and bright red in colour. She smiled as she saw Raflog, and went to give him a hug, and then gleefully welcomed Cassia home. As she turned to the Doctor, however, her manner grew distant.

"And who might you be?" she said, completely ignoring Sophie.

Sophie lifted an eyebrow, unimpressed. "And what am I, invisible?"

"I'm the Doctor," he said, quickly, "and this is Sophie. I'm sorry for the way we've just, you know, appeared out of thin air, but that's kind of what happens with us."

"My partner and I found them wandering around the turbocannon factory," Raflog explained, and quickly caught Atraya up on everything that happened.

The woman nodded. Her skin was tanned, probably due to hours spent working beneath the sun lamps. She turned to the Doctor and Sophie. "So you can help? How?"

The Doctor considered. "First, I need to know what's going on. I happen to know a lot about history, and I'm not from around here. What's happening here, on Ford XVII, is wrong. All of it is… so wrong."

Artraya lifted an eyebrow. "You can say that again."

"No, but you don't understand," he insisted. "Everything is just off. I'm not sure why, but I have my theories. To confirm them, I need to either go back to the turbocannon factory and collect my TARDIS, or I need to get to the moon some other way."

"TARDIS?" Artraya asked

"Big blue box," Sophie said, not wanting to give this hostile woman any more information than was strictly necessary.

"Time and space machine," the Doctor added, and at Artraya's shocked expression, he said "I'm a Time Lord. I'm more than a thousand years old. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous, and I'm here to help. You can either help me help you, or not, but either way, I'm still going to try."

Artraya, Raflog and Vrin all stared at him; his tone had grown intense, and his eyes were burning with a quiet fire. Sophie had to admit that even she was impressed. He had a way about him, the Doctor, of inspiring people, of goading them into standing up for whatever they needed to stand up for. It's what he'd done back in Newcastle, in the bubble universe created by the Trickster's Brigade around her.

"Help me," was all he said.

"You need to get to the moon?" Cassia said; of the four of them, she seemed to have been the most affected by the Doctor's words.

"_Why_ do you need to get to the moon?" Artraya asked before he could answer.

"The moon's where it all changed," the Doctor said. "Raflog told me that he was here, on the planet, when they lost contact with the people on the moon. That's when history started going wrong, when the Managers took over and a planet that is meant to be devoid of organic life was suddenly flooded with people sent here just to work. Up there… up there's where it all started."

"What do you know about electroproton accelerators?" Cassia asked, and Raflog and Artraya shot her hard looks.

"I know a lot about electroproton accelerators," the Doctor answered, lifting an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Cassia, don't say another word," Raflog warned.

"Why not? You heard him," she said, "he wants to help. He thinks he knows how he can help. I've already told you, Raflog, I'm going to help him in any way I can."

Artraya seemed taken aback, but said "Cassia, I think we can all agree that while you do a great deal of good for us, I am in charge."

Cassia nodded respectfully. "Yes," she agreed, "you are. But I built that ship from scratch."

"You have a ship?" the Doctor asked, looking positively gleeful.

"Yeah," Cassia said. "It's not much. Built it myself. I mean, it's not much to look at it, and it's engines are really just reverse-engineered electroproton accelerators I stole from the turbocannon factory that I haven't managed to get to work…"

"But it's the best shot we've got," the Doctor finished for her, nodding. "Sounds all right to me. Lead on, Macduff!"

"Hang on a minute," Raflog said. "You aren't going anywhere, Doctor!"

The Doctor sighed, and looked to Sophie, almost apologetically. "I can help, Raflog. Please, please… let me. Artraya? Please."

Raflog looked like he'd already made up his mind, but Artraya seemed to be wavering. "He can do it," Sophie said, quietly. Artraya looked at her, as though seeing her for the first time; Sophie saw something in the woman's eyes, something distant and half-formed. Was it hope? Was it that faith in the Doctor that Sophie felt with every fibre of her being.

"Vrin," she said, her expression softening, "escort Sophie here to a spare room. I'm sure she could use a bit of a rest. Cassia, you and I will show the Doctor to the ship."

"Artraya," Raflog said, about to protest, but she lifted her hand, silencing him.

"Raflog," the Doctor said, turning to him, "I know we haven't exactly gotten along, but please, I'm asking you. I'm begging you, actually. Look after Sophie."

"I can look after myself, Doctor," Sophie interrupted.

"I know you can, Sophie," the Doctor said, with a smile, "but please, just humour me. Raflog?"

Raflog nodded once. Sophie smiled despite herself; she was unimpressed that the Doctor was swanning off without her yet again, but she was happy enough to be left in the care of a man as honourable as Raflog clearly was, even if she felt that that care was unnecessary.

"All right," the Doctor said to Artraya and Cassia. "Take me to your ship."

Cassia and Artraya led the Doctor towards one of the many tunnels branching off the upper tier of the colony. The tunnel was just as narrow as the one they'd come down a few minutes before, but was on a much steeper incline. They said nothing as they climbed, and the Doctor realised that he'd left Sophie behind with very little explanation.

However, he didn't have much time to be guilty. A few moments later, Cassia was shoving aside another hatch covering and helping Artraya through the hole in the roof as the Doctor joined them. He hauled himself up after them, and found himself in what seemed to be a small, ramshackle factory-cum-hangar.

"What a piece of junk," the Doctor said as he saw the little ship that had been patched together on a jury-rigged landing platform. Cassia was about to protest, but those protestations were killed by the Doctor's grin and exclamation; "It's gorgeous!"

Cassia grinned.

The ship was small, roughly tubular, and though quite obviously homemade looked sturdy.

"Cassia and a few of our residents have been working hard," Artraya explained, as the Doctor walked slowly around the ship, drinking it all in. "The Managers removed any ships from the surface the instant they took control of the planet. Probably destroyed them all."

"Why did you build this one?" the Doctor asked.

Artraya shrugged. "Because we could."

The Doctor grinned. "Oh, that is brilliant! But, really, Artraya, you seem like a woman with a supreme sense of… shall we say, practicality? I can't imagine you'd be okay with using resources on something like this unless you had a use for it."

Artraya grimaced.

Cassia just looked at her, and nodded. "You may as well tell him, Artraya. What have we got to lose?"

"We're planning a revolution," Artraya said. "Sooner, rather than later."

The Doctor lifted an eyebrow. "Looks like I got here at just the right time, then."

"Why's that?" the woman asked.

"I've been a part of more uprisings, insurrections, mutinies, riots, revolts, revolutions and rebellions than you've had hot dinners," the Doctor said, grinning. "I've brought down corrupt regimes and brought tyrants and dictators to justice more often than I've stepped foot on my own home planet."

Artraya blinked. "Who _are_ you?" she asked, bewildered.

"I'm the Doctor," was all he said in response, before turning to Cassia. "So why haven't you got this thing flying yet?"

"How did you know?" Cassia asked, surprised.

The Doctor glanced around the hangar, confirming his observations. "There's no signs of carbon scoring from re-entry on the hull of the craft, no marks on the landing pad that would signify an attempt at take-off or landing."

Artraya and Cassia shared a look. Cassia said "It's the engines."

"The electroproton accelerators," the Doctor said, rolling his eyes. "I knew that would be the problem."

Without another word, he went over to the ship. Pulling his sonic screwdriver from the pocket of his coat, he ran it over the craft, and smiled to himself. Artraya was about to ask him what he was doing, but Cassia silenced her with a look. The Doctor adjusted the settings on his screwdriver, and a hatch opened in the side of the craft. A simple maintenance hatch, designed to provide easy access to the ship's inner workings, it revealed a jumble of wires and servos.

"Oh, this is almost too easy," he said. "Cassia, come take a look."

The girl went over to join him, and, ever so carefully, he used his screwdriver to realign each one of the electroproton accelerators, long, thin devices that energised the space surrounding them enough to provide thrust to an object travelling past hem.

"See, normally, these accelerators would be inside the barrel of a turbocannon," the Doctor explained to Cassia, and by extension to Artraya, who was listening intently. "Once you power them up, a great deal of energy starts to crackle through them; in a turbocannon, thousands of these things will speed a slug up to well over the speed of light. Now, in order to make a craft like this travel, it's a simple matter of reversing the output."

"I know that," Cassia said, annoyed. "How are you going to fix it?"

"Oh, that part's easy," the Doctor said, as he finished adjusting the last accelerator. "All I need to do is realign the interior molecular structure of the accelerators. I mean, it was a brilliant idea on your part to use them to power the shuttle, but… here we go!"

All at once, the shuttle came to life; the display lights on the accelerators came to life, and the engines began to hum. The Doctor felt a crackle of energy throughout the hangar as the air grew charged.

"Sonic technology," the Doctor said; his smile was dwarfed by the beaming smile shared by Artraya and Cassia. "Swear by it."


	34. The Factory Workers: 7

**'The Factory Workers'**

_Seven_

* * *

><p>"You like Cassia, don't you?" Sophie asked Vrin as he escorted her to her new quarters. Raflog hung respectfully, and probably resentfully, back, but Sophie didn't have time to worry about the old man; she was more concerned about the Doctor, and whatever he was getting up to. Better, she thought, to tease a teenage boy who was actually a teenager than to spend her time fretting about a teenage boy who happened to be a thousand-year-old Time Lord.<p>

"Of course I do," Vrin said, but Sophie picked up on the extra defensiveness in his tone. "She's resourceful, brave, clever…"

"And cute," Sophie supplied, and she was gratified to see the kid's cheeks flush with embarrassment.

"Maybe," was all he said in response.

Sophie had to suppose that living in an environment like Ford XVII didn't leave much time for dating, but she decided that even if she couldn't do much to help the Doctor or the workers, she was going to get this gawky teenager to ask out Cassia. She had to do something, after all, now that the Doctor had gone and left her again.

She fought the desire to sigh in exasperation. When they'd parted ways in New Tokyo, she'd ended up on the wrong side of a pair of killer robots; when he'd gone off without her in Siena, she'd ended up, first, battling a killer cult member and then later being captured by one. She still shivered at the thought of what happened when they first met; she'd been separated from the Doctor and had seen the world literally collapse around her because of it.

Bad things tended to happen when they were apart, and she couldn't help but shake the feeling, even in the relatively safe confines of the colony, that something bad was about to happen.

Vrin continued on in silence, leading Sophie down to the middle tier of the cavern. Most of the people they passed seemed wary of her, but they nodded and smiled when they saw Raflog. The middle tier was mostly a collection of squat living spaces, and Sophie couldn't help but smile as she saw a few kids playing a chasing game through the small houses.

Finally, they reached a small house. Vrin unlocked the door, and Sophie entered to find a comfortable but bland space; it reminded her of a motel room. A bed, a cupboard, a bedside table, a door that led to a small bathroom. There was even a bland painting on one of the walls; it almost hurt Sophie to look at it, a bland chocolate box depiction of a day at the seaside, obviously painted by someone who'd never seen a seaside, but merely had such a scene described to them.

"What is this?" she asked him, looking around at the somewhat depressing room.

"Temporary housing for fugitives," Vrin said. "Usually, we move them on to other colonies, or hide them in other factories. Security Section misses them most of the time."

"Usually thanks to me," Raflog added, but there was no self-aggrandisement in his tone; he was merely stating a fact, and Vrin nodded.

"On this part of the planet," he explained to Sophie, "Raflog is the highest-ranking member of the Security Section that's actually a part of the resistance. He does something incredible, dangerous work. If the Managers ever found out about it, he'd be exterminated instantly."

"And the Doctor and I have jeopardised that," Sophie said, blanching apologetically.

Raflog simply shrugged. "If the Doctor can help us, perhaps it will be worth it."

"And if he can't?"

The man's expression darkened. "Then you may have doomed us all to another generation of slavery at the hands of the Managers."

Vrin bowed his head, and Sophie's heart went out to him; she may not have had the easiest childhood or the best life, but even being shuttled from foster home to foster home had to have been better than spending your life on a world choked by smog and industrial pollution, with nothing to look forward to beyond the horror of working in those same factories.

She was about to say something else, when there was a knock at the door. Raflog went to open it, and admitted a rather flushed looking Doctor, followed by a grinning Cassia and Artraya, who was clearly out of breath and struggling to stay standing.

"That was fast," Sophie said, going to hug her friend.

"You have no idea," the Doctor said, returning the hug. "They've got a ship, Sophie. Not much to look at, but she seems like she's got some guts."

Cassia positively beamed at that statement; Sophie couldn't help but smile along with her. "Okay, so, what does that mean?"

"It means I'm going up," the Doctor said, simply.

Sophie and Raflog, surprisingly, had identical reactions of disbelief and annoyance. "What?" she exclaimed, stepping back, jaw slack.

"Artraya, you can't seriously be considering letting this man take our ship, our one space-flight capable resource," Raflog said, looking at the colony's leader with fire in his eyes.

"We don't have any other choice," Artraya answered. "You should have seen him, Raflog. We have never been able to get that ship to work, and he just… made it happen. In a few minutes, he reconfigured every single one of the electroproton accelerators."

"It's ready to fly now!" Cassia said.

"Then I'm going with him," Raflog demanded.

"You are not," Cassia and Sophie said together. They shared a look, Sophie layering on the hostility. She wanted it known that she wasn't going to let the Doctor out of her sight again.

"Sophie," the Doctor said, quietly. "She's a two person ship. I have to go, I think you'll agree with that. Cassia built her. More importantly, Cassia knows how to operate her and even if you could, it wouldn't be fair."

"Fair?" Sophie echoed, rolling her eyes. "Doctor, you know what happens when we get separated."

The Doctor nodded. "I do, but you'll be safe here. Artraya has assured me of it."

"And did you think to run this past me?" Raflog demanded of the woman. "Or anyone else, for that matter? We operate by consensus, last time I checked."

Artraya's nostrils flared, and she rounded on Raflog. "Listen to me, sir. We operate by consensus when consensus is called for and when time allows it. The Doctor has done us a tremendous service already today."

"What, blowing my cover?" Raflog demanded.

"Oh, would you get over that!" Vrin erupted, speaking for the first time since the Doctor had returned. Every single person in the room turned to regard him with looks of shock and disbelief. He blushed under their collective gaze, but Sophie couldn't help but notice the look of admiration in Cassia's eyes. He swallowed, took in a breath, and went on: "He fixed the ship. He made it work. He can help us beat the Managers, and I think it's incumbent on us to let him try."

"Incumbent," Cassia repeated. Vrin blushed an even deeper shade of red. "Nice word."

Vrin smiled nervously and then, words catching in his throat a little, said "And it's not like we're doing anything else."

"Hear, hear," the Doctor agreed, nodding vehemently.

Raflog was clearly fuming, but said no more.

Sophie reached out, and tugged the Doctor to the side by the sleeve of his coat. "And what about me, Doctor? What am I meant to do while you go gallivanting about with Cassia? Just wait here?"

The Doctor shrugged apologetically. "I suppose so. Look, Sophie, it's the only way. I know you don't like being sidelined, but that's just the position we're in at the moment."

She nodded, understanding. "Fine. Just be quick about it, you hear? The sooner we bring down these Managers or whatever, the sooner we can get off Ford XVII."

The Doctor nodded. "Believe me, I want this to be over as quickly as you do."

The two of them turned back to the waiting people; all four of them had been watching them intently. Sophie felt slightly uncomfortable, but the Doctor grinned. "All right then, let's go."

The Doctor, Cassia and Artraya, Vrin escorting them, had departed almost immediately, leaving Sophie alone in the room with Raflog. The old man seemed deeply committed to his promise to the Doctor to keep her safe, which surprised her. She wasn't, after all, blind to the outright hostility he'd shown towards them.

"Raflog," she said, finally, "why?"

"Why what?" he answered, gruffly.

"Why do this? The revolution, the resistance. You seemed to have it pretty cushy with the Security Section," Sophie said. "Why give that up?"  
>The man blinked, as though he'd never considered the question before. "I don't mind working, Ms. Freeman. I don't mind labouring in the factories. I do, however, deeply dislike working for faceless overlords who see me and my fellow workers as cogs in a machine."<p>

Sophie grinned. "Sound like a right Labor man, you do. Or should I say a left Labor man."

Raflog lifted an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Politics," Sophie said. "Not my strongpoint, really, which is odd considering that the most important day of my life was an election day."

Unbidden, memories of that long ago car accident came to mind; her parents in the front seat, little Sophie, barely five years old, in the back. The man talking on the radio, the squealing of the other car's tires. The horrendous grind of metal being rent, the shattering of glass, the gurgling of blood and spilled petrol. She thought, too, of the Doctor, of the day they'd met.

"Well," she corrected herself. "Second most important day."

"Elections," Raflog echoed, as though the idea were thoroughly alien to him. "You're not from around here at all, are you?"

Sophie sighed, deciding that there was no point keeping secrets from him. "I'm only about two hundred thousand years away from home."

"Huh?"

"The Doctor and I are time travellers," she said. "Well, the Doctor is. I'm just along from the ride. He takes me around, shows me things. That's the plan, at any rate, but it never quite ends up like that."

Raflog sounded now like a doting uncle, listening to a child telling a story. "How does it usually end up, then?"

Sophie, sharp as ever to condescension, glared. "A bit like this, usually. Running. Fighting injustice. Saving lives."

Raflog blinked at the forcefulness of her tone. "You're serious."

"Deadly serious, mate," Sophie said. "My name is Sophie Freeman. I was born in 1991, common era. Or AD. Whatever. In Australia. On Earth."

"Why are you here?" Raflog asked, his expression stony, suspicious.

"Because sometimes the TARDIS just… picks a random place," Sophie said. "The Doctor was meant to take me to Tokyo, when we first started travelling together. We ended up in New Tokyo, instead. Entirely different city on an entirely different planet. Then we were meant to go to Pisa, in Italy, but ended up in Siena, instead."

"I've never heard of any of those places," Raflog said, unimpressed.

"You've never heard of Earth?"

"Oh, of course I have," he said dismissively. "The homeworld of humankind. Half a galaxy from here. I've never set foot on it."

Sophie wasn't surprised; she knew enough about the galaxy and the future of the human race now to know that they had spread amongst the stars in fairly short order, and it made sense that Earth would become a semi-mystical place, a forgotten home that belonged to long-dead ancestors. Like England, Scotland and Ireland had been to her parents.

She sighed, though. "Look, Raflog, I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's true. Everything the Doctor has told you since we got away from Jenna has been the truth."

Raflog bowed his head for a moment, and Sophie could practically hear the gears in his head ticking over. Finally, he nodded. "I know, Sophie. I promised the Doctor that I would take care of you,

* * *

><p>The Doctor and Cassia sat side by side in the cramped cockpit of the tiny, unnamed ship she'd built from scratch. They were surrounded by blinking, steadily beeping control panels; there was barely room to move, the Doctor thought as he settled into his seat, which was under-stuffed and quite uncomfortable.<p>

"You ready to go?" he asked Cassia.

She nodded; Artraya and Vrin were watching them intently. The door to the hangar had been opened, exposing the smog-chocked skies of Ford XVII. "Ready as I'll ever be."

The Doctor reached for the ignition key on his console. Cassia mirrored his movements. "On three?" he asked.

"On three," she nodded. "Here's hoping we don't blow up as soon as we turn the keys."

"We won't, Cassia," the Doctor said, grinning. "Have some faith, will you?"

"One," she began. "Two. Three."

As the syllable left her mouth, she and the Doctor both twisted their ignition keys as one. The electroproton engines flared to life. The entire ship hummed and shook around them, and Cassia quickly grabbed the controls as it shot from the hangar.

"Cassia's an impressive young woman," Artraya said to Vrin as the shuttle zoomed off into the poisoned skies.

"Yes," was all Vrin said.

"You should ask her out," Artraya said, smiling slyly as she walked off.

* * *

><p>Hagren was alone in the small anteroom that separated the main entrance tunnel from the primary accessway into the colony. Usually, it was he and Vrin or one of the other junior guards watching over the small cavern, but considering that hubbub that surrounded the arrival of the Doctor and Sophie, Hagren had decided to keep his complaints about being left alone to himself.<p>

The scanner on his desk began to blink, and Hagren moved to activate the screen. A small camera, located in the outer cavern, activated. Hagren's eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. The cavern was crammed with people, all of them armed, all of them clad in the silver uniforms of the Security Section.

Most horrifying and shocking of all, however, was the thing that led them. Almost as tall as a man, with a domed head and raised bumps along its lower circumference, it featured one long eyestalk, a gunstick and a manipulator arm that looked like nothing so much as a toilet plunger.

Three more were in the cavern, forming a triangle behind the leader, though they were burnished bronze in colour; the leader was a midnight black.

Fear flooded him. He had never seen one, only heard vague descriptions, and he knew of their evil, their ruthlessness. That creature was a Manager. Hagren's fingers flew, and he immediately activated the alarms in the main cavern. The colony would begin to evacuate.

On the screen, he saw the Manager's gunstick swivel towards the door. It fired, and as unrestrained energy tore through the hatchway and the cavern, as Hagren's body was torn into free-floating atoms, he took some comfort from the thought that some of those in the colony might yet survive.

* * *

><p>The alarms were loud, shrieking. Sophie threw her hands over her ears as Raflog grabbed her and roughly pulled her towards the door of her small chamber. She struggled at first, confused, but decided to follow his directions; she shouted to him, desperate for information, but over the blaring of the alarms he couldn't hear her.<p>

The second tier of the colony was packed with people streaming from their residences; men, women and children were all running towards the tunnels cut into the cavern walls that would take them down to the lowest tier, and Raflog pulled Sophie along with him, carrying his rifle somewhat precariously in one hand.

"Raflog!" they heard a voice shout over the alarms, and they stopped, turning to see Vrin leading Artraya through the press of people, most of whom moved aside without any argument for their leader.

Vrin, far from the awkward kid Sophie had met only an hour or so ago, seemed to be all business. His face was set, and he clutched his sidearm with a kind of resolve Sophie had learned, in her time travelling with the Doctor, to be wary of. Artraya, similarly, looked concerned, but seemed as unflappable as ever.

"What's happening?" Raflog shouted as they drew near.

"Didn't you hear the explosion?" Vrin demanded.

"We're under attack," Artraya answered, and Sophie's ice turned to blood. Security Section must have followed she, the Doctor, Raflog and Cassia from the turbocannon factory. From the look on Raflog's face, an equal mixture of shame and horror, Sophie guessed that he'd reached the same conclusion. "We're evacuating the colony."

"Security Section are already on the upper tier," Vrin explained. Abruptly, the alarm was cut off. "Some of our guys are holding them off."

A high-pitched whine momentarily filled the air.

"What the hell was that?" Sophie demanded.

Raflog's face was white as a sheet. "A Manager. There's a Manager here."

Artraya swallowed, and flew into what Sophie supposed was her commander mode. She drew herself up to her full height; most of the people had streamed from the middle-tier through the tunnels, and Sophie guessed that by now they'd reached the floor of the cavern.

"What's down there?" she asked Raflog, as they followed Vrin and Artraya into the tunnels.

"Escape passageways," Raflog explained. "All of them lead to a relatively safe areas away from the main colony."

"And they've been designed to collapse on command," Artraya shouted back. "We'll be safe! Just keep moving!"

They burst from the tunnel onto the colony's bottom floor. Beneath the glare of the sun lamps high above, the area seemed to be like nothing so much as a landscaped park. Most of the people, now, were running towards openings in the cavern wall on the far side. On the upper tier, Sophie could make out silver-uniformed people moving towards the tunnels that would lead them to the lower tiers. Her heart stopped, however, when she saw four robot-looking things gleaming in the light of the sunlamps.

"What the hell are they?" she said.

"Managers," Raflog answered.

"Four of them?" Vrin croaked; his mask of professionalism had cracked, and Sophie realised that he was utterly, completely terrified. It was good to know, in that moment, that she wasn't alone in feeling that.

"Keep moving!" Artraya urged, and they join the surge of people rushing towards the escape tunnels.

A whining keen filled the air, and as she ran, Sophie saw the Managers rise over the railing that ringed the upper tier. They could fly! The Managers, riding glowing antigravity generators, began to descend upon the hapless residents of the colony, and Sophie could make out specific features on their shining metal bodies. That same high-pitched whine sounded again and again as their guns open fired, spraying hyphens of white energy down into the crowd.

People cried, screaming in agony, as they were stuck; the light from the blasts were so powerful that Sophie could have sworn she saw their skeletons silhouetted against it as they died.

And dying they were, in their dozens. Sophie knew it was, at least partially her fault, but she didn't have time to feel the guilt. Shunting it aside, she focused on running. Vrin, Raflog and Artraya were trailing her ever so slightly. Her entire existence was a determination to reach that tunnel, to survive, to see the Doctor again.

Just as they reached the tunnels, dozens of Security Section personnel poured onto the lower tier, as the Managers touched down. The Managers moved, immediately, for the tunnels, as the Security Section men and women spread out and hunted down the colonists that hadn't managed to reach the tunnels in time. Sophie heard the telltale sounds of their rifles being fired, but she didn't stop. She couldn't afford to.

The four of them continued down the tunnel, but they heard no one else following them, and could hear no one else in front of them. Sophie, chest heaving, adrenalin flowing, came to a stop and turned to see the distant pinprick of light that was the exit back onto the lower tier.

"Keep moving!" Raflog urged as he passed her by, followed by Artraya and Vrin, but Sophie found herself rooted to the spot. A Manager had followed them into the tunnel, its casing as black as night. The only sign that it was there, against the gloom of the tunnel, was the blue light of its glowing eyestalk.

"Come on!" she heard a voice say, and Vrin grabbed her arm, pulling her along the tunnel. She couldn't believe that she'd stopped like that, but the terror was pressing down on her, now, and she wasn't sure how she could possibly hope to survive.

"We're almost there!" Artraya shouted over her shoulder in front of them.

They burst into a smaller cavern, lit by a single glowing control panel placed against the rock. Raflog went to it, and began to input commands. Vrin shoved Sophie towards Artraya, who was standing beside another tunnel, which seemed to lead upwards.

"What are we waiting for?" Sophie demanded.

"We have to make sure the tunnel collapses behind us," Artraya said, and Sophie realised for the first time how terrified the stately woman was.

Vrin was starting to fire his weapon into the tunnel behind them.

"There was a Manager right behind us!" Sophie said.

"Yes," was all Artraya said. "Raflog, how's it coming?"

"I can't get the explosives to work," Raflog said. "Damn it!"

"It's here!" Vrin said, and he jumped aside from the tunnel exit as a blast tore apart the rock he'd just been standing on. Sophie tried to pull Artraya towards the escape passageway, but now it was her turn to be rooted in place.

"Oh, God, come on!" she demanded.

Too late. The Manager glided into the chamber, aiming its gunstick again at Vrin. It fired, and Vrin leapt aside. The blast struck the side of the chamber, and rocks and dust tumbled down. Sophie couldn't see Vrin; even as Raflog raised his rifle, a half dozen Security Section personnel poured into the chamber, rifles raised.

"Don't try it!" barked a familiar voice.

Sophie saw Jenna leading the Security Section personnel, all of them with their rifles aimed at Raflog.

"Put your weapon down," Artraya told him, finally finding her voice again. Raflog, reluctantly, followed her orders and set his gun on the floor of the cavern. Drawing herself up to her full height, Artraya walked towards the Manager. Its eyestalk swivelled to follow her. "I am Artraya, leader of the colony you have just attacked. We have broken no laws."

The Manager didn't seem to care. In a horrifying, grating screech of a voice, it cried "**Exterminate!**"

It's gunstick twitched and fired; Artraya died, screaming in agony.

Sophie watched, jaw slack, completely horrified. She was unable to move or breathe or even think. The Manager slid past Artraya's body, heading straight for Sophie. Its manipulator arm extended towards her, twisting. It studied her intently. All she could was stare, dumbstruck, into its glowing eyestalk. Somewhere, deep in her guts, she could feel a creature staring back at her.

"What… what are you?" she managed to choke out at least.

"**I am a Dalek,**" the creature announced. "**You are a companion of the Doctor's.**"

Sophie's eyes widened; she couldn't see it, but so did Jenna's. "How can you tell?"

"**Silence!**" the creature, the Dalek, roared. It turned back to Jenna, who had taken Raflog's gun away. "**Prepare them both for transportation to the planet's moon.**"

"Yes, sir," Jenna answered, her tone stilted.

Sophie was shaking now, uncontrollably. The Dalek turned back to her, studying her intently. Finally, it told to her, with something akin to glee, "**You are a prisoner of the Daleks!**"


	35. The Factory Workers: 8

**'The Factory Workers'**

_Eight_

* * *

><p>"We need a name!" the Doctor declared, as Cassia's ship plunged upwards through the atmosphere.<p>

The blonde girl turned in her seat beside him. Though her jaw was set tight, the Doctor saw the whiteness of her knuckles as she held the controls, the fine patina of sweat that had appeared on her forehead. As much confidence as she'd evinced in the craft when they were still on the ground, the actual experience of trying to break through Ford XVII's atmosphere was proving a bit too much for her to handle.

"What are you talking about, a name?" she demanded, her voice shaking.  
>The Doctor grinned. "Should have mentioned it before we took off, really. You always name a ship, for good luck."<p>

She laughed nervously. "Um, how about _Hopeless_?"

The Doctor gave an exaggerated scowl. "Not very poetic."

A vibration that threatened to tear the tiny vessel nearly shook the Doctor from his seat. He pulled up on the controls. "I think a name is the least of our problems right now!"

"I think we could use all the luck we can get right now," the Doctor countered, and despite herself Cassia laughed.

The g-forces were starting to press them back into their seats, and the beleaguered little craft's salvaged and scrounged components were struggling even more than they had been already.

"Pick a name," the Doctor said, through gritted teeth.

Cassia was shaking, but she managed to say something.

"I didn't hear that, sorry," the Doctor repeated, raising his voice over the reverberating cacophony of the battered shuttle's quaking hull. "You'll have to speak up!"

Cassia was groaning, and then she screamed a name. "Lennia!"

As she spoke, the craft broke Ford XVII's atmosphere with one final shake, and Cassia burst into hysterical laughter, completely unable to believe that she was alive. She turned around and pulled the Doctor into an impromptu hug.

"We did it!" she cried, relief and excitement flooding her voice. "Oh my God, we actually made it!"

"Yes, we did," the Doctor agreed with a grin. "What was that name you said?"

Cassia considered, momentarily overwhelmed by the emotion of having survived their ascent from the planet's surface. Finally, she remembered what she'd said. "Oh, Lennia. My mother's name."

"Lennia," the Doctor said, as though tasting the character of the name, savouring the way it rested on his tongue. "Beautiful name. We really need a bottle of champagne for this, but what do you say we christen this bird _Lennia_, after the mother of its mother."

"I'm the ship's mother now?" Cassia repeated, snorting.

The Doctor just grinned. "You built her. You made her from scratch. Mother, creator, what's the difference?"

"_Lennia_," Cassia said, and she grinned. "Excellent. Now come on, we need to get this bucket of bolts to the moon. Find out what the Managers are up to."

"Absolutely," the Doctor agreed, nodding. "I'm activating the navigational computer now." The computer came to life slowly, in fits and starts; it was slow, old, its databanks barely strong enough to handle the relatively easy trip from planetary orbit to Ford XVII's one moon.

"Hang on, I'll give it some more power," Cassia said, tapping at a few controls. "Now that we've broken orbit we don't have to worry about the heat shields. I'm feeding that power into the engines and the nav computers."

The Doctor nodded. "Good idea. Don't overtax the conduits, though. The last thing we need right now is to burn out our power systems, end up a frozen hulk in the dead of space."

"Overly poetic, Doctor," Cassia said, but she looked uncomfortable. "They should be able to handle it."

The Doctor glanced over her shoulder to check her readouts. She and the movement's engineers had done amazing work, especially considering the incredibly limited resources at their disposal. Electro-proton accelerator engines, heat shields made out of stolen factory fire-fighting force fields, a hand-built, self-programmed nav computer. The little ship was an ode to human ingenuity, and the Doctor realised, much to his embarrassment, that he was glowing with an almost paternal pride.

Burying that feeling, he said to Cassia "I'm going to plot a course that'll take us around the dark side of Ford XVII. Give the engines one quick burn after I've set the course; it should be enough to slingshot us around the planet, and then we ride the gravity well all the way to the moon."

"And keep us off the manager's scanners," Cassia said, nodding, as she began to program the engines for their burn.

"Exactly," the Doctor said, smiling and nodding. He began to input his commands into the navigation computer, and on the screen before him a wire outline of Ford XVII appeared. The possible parabolic courses the shuttle could take around the curve of the planet were highlighted in red, and the one the Doctor selected was locked in a green hue. "Not as sophisticated the technology I'm used to working with, but it'll get the job done."

"Ready to execute the burn on your mark, Doctor," Cassia said, and he heard that the fear in her tone from earlier had been replaced with excitement.

"Course set," the Doctor said, and rechecked his calculations. "It all looks good. Are you ready, Cassia?"

"I'm ready, Doctor," she said, with a grin.

"Execute burn," he ordered, and she tapped a control. With a gentle shake, the craft began to accelerate; Ford XVII, its industrial surface hidden in places beneath layers of atmosphere smog, began to rotate past quickly as _Lennia_'s small electroproton accelerator engines came to life.

The ship began to shake, and then, just as quickly as the acceleration started, it stopped, and _Lennia_ sailed through the vacuum, maintaining its speed in the frictionless environment. Kept on its course by the planet's gravity, the ship began to clear the edge of the world. There, in the distance, the Doctor saw the planet's moon. Something about it, though, didn't seem right.

"That's odd," the Doctor said, and was about to check sensor readings when he remembered that the little ship didn't have anything much more advanced than a viewing scope and a Geiger counter.

"What is?" Cassia asked, but the Doctor was squinting through the viewport as the moon rushed up to greet the oncoming shuttle.

"The moon of a Ford-class factory planet is meant to be a terraformed tropical paradise," the Doctor reminded her. "Lush jungles, shallow lagoons, beaches. That moon looks like a wasteland."

Quite apart from the thick green growth the Doctor had expected, the moon before them was a small, off-white barren rock. The jungles looked to have been turned to ash and dust, the oceans long ago boiled away. Whatever atmosphere that was left was probably toxic.

"No one could live there," Cassia said, and the Doctor nodded.

"Not just that," he said, checking the Geiger counter, "but there's a great deal of radiation emanating from the moon. It was nothing natural that caused whatever calamity destroyed the surface."

"Then what?"

"My guess is some nuclear detonation," the Doctor explained, shaking his head.

"Raflog always told us that they lost contact with the personnel on the moon for no reason at all," Cassia responded, shaking her head. "Surely they would have said something about a nuclear bomb going off!"

"Maybe," the Doctor said, nodding, "unless that electromagnetic pulse that accompanies a nuclear explosion knocked their communications offline before they had a chance to contact anyone else."

"Surely they must have had equipment shielded against an EMP blast," Cassia said, the moon growing ever larger in the forward viewport. "I mean, a random solar flare would be able to knock out their comm. systems…"

"Which is what's making me think that it wasn't an accident," the Doctor said. "They were attacked. Wiped out." He shuddered as he said the next word. "Exterminated."

"By who?"

"I have a pretty good idea who's behind it," the Doctor said. "I don't want to believe it, truth be told, because whenever they show up, people die. I lose everything and they carry on, killing and maiming and destroying entire worlds."

"Who?" Cassia repeated, her voice thick with worry.

"The Daleks," the Doctor said.

Cassia blinked, clearly uninformed. She was about to ask a follow up question when a small indicator light on her control board notified her that they'd almost reached the endpoint of their course. They'd almost reached the moon, now, and it was blackened, pockmarked ball of rock. Looming large in the northern hemisphere, however, was a pyramidal structure, deathly black and reeking of malice and danger. It was a ziggurat, he realised.

"What the hell is that?" Cassia asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "I am not certain. I'm aiming the scope towards it, we'll see if we can't get a better look."

On his screen, the image of the course they'd travelled was replaced with an image of the structure. Studded with weapons, the Doctor realised that it resembled nothing so much as Dalek armour. He was looking directly at a fully armed and armoured Dalek citadel, a fortress; like the Norman castles in eleventh century Britain, a symbol of administration, control and domination. His blood ran cold at the sight of it.

His greatest enemies had returned once more, and he was looking at one of the very symbols of their dominion.

"We need to get out of here," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "Hang on, I'm going to reinitialise the burn, throw it into reverse, and get us back into orbit as soon as I can."

"But why?" Cassia asked. "Didn't we come here to see this?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I had my suspicions, but I wasn't certain. Now I am. Now I know for a fact that the Daleks are here. I need to find Sophie. No one is safe as long as these creatures exist."

Cassia blinked. "I can't believe I'm hearing this from you, Doctor. The way you spoke to Raflog when we were escaping the factory…"

"The Daleks are different," he said. "The Daleks are worse. They're monsters, pure and simple. They have a dislike for the unlike that goes far beyond anything you can rightly imagine. They are omnicidal killers, who murder for pleasure and because it has literally been written into their genetic code. They are unstoppable. They are deadly. They're here."

Tears had appeared in the corners of Cassia's eyes. "They're the Managers, aren't they?"

The Doctor nodded once. "They must be. And if they're…"

He trailed off, realising what had upset her.

"We need to get back to the planet now," the Doctor said, and immediately began manipulating controls. If the Managers were Daleks, and he was now positive that they were, they'd have known who he was the second Raflog had transmitted his biological data to him. They'd have secured the TARDIS, and probably brought it back to their ziggurat. They'd probably have sent at least one of their number to the surface to hunt him down. It would have followed his trail from the factory, directly back to the movement's colony.

"Everyone's dead," Cassia said, shaking her head. Her voice was hollow, tears now streaming down her cheeks. "The Managers would have found them and killed them."

"We don't know that," the Doctor said as he finished locking the course into the computer. "If they are, Cassia, I swear to you, we'll make them pay."

Cassia swallowed and nodded. The Doctor knew she was worried about Raflog, about Dextra and the kids, but his thoughts remained solely with Sophie. Though his hearts went out to the rest of the movement, Sophie's presence on Ford XVII was entirely his responsibility. She'd been put in danger entirely because of his actions.

"There's another ship out there," Cassia said, snapping the Doctor out of his reverie. A small vessel was speeding towards the moon, directly from the planet, not bothering with any of the parabolic plotting the Doctor had had to go through. Clearly, it didn't care about being detected and wasn't being powered by anything as primitive as homemade electroproton accelerator drives.

"It must be one of theirs," the Doctor said. "We don't have time to worry about that now. We've got to go."

Without even bothering to re-check his calculations, he activated the engines, and the little ship accelerated away from the moon, diving back down towards the planet. His hearts were pounding, and somehow he knew he was already too late.


	36. Weapons of the Daleks: 1

**Historian's Note:** this story takes place immediately after the conclusion of 'The Factory Workers'

* * *

><p>'<strong>Weapons of the Daleks'<strong>

_Nine_

* * *

><p>The small shuttlecraft fell from orbit on a trail of blazing flame, riding a cone of white-hot fire. Its engines, cobbled together and only just made to work, struggled to slow down its descent, but as it carved a trail of steam across the upper atmosphere of factory planet Ford XVII, parting the multi-kilometre thick blankets of smog that coated the planet, it became clear to the two people inside that they'd be lucky to survive the coming seconds.<p>

The woman in the pilot's seat, gripping the controls with white knuckles, was young, slim and blonde; barely out of her teens, her guile and cunning and raw cleverness had built the ship and her sheer determination had put it in orbit. The man beside her, indeterminately older but older nonetheless, had a thick mop of dark hair, and wore a coat that was black as night.

His jaw was set, and he was holding a thin, long device with a glowing light at its tip to the console in front of him.

"What are you doing?" the girl asked, her teeth chattering as the hull vibrated at an ever more violent frequency.

"Reversing the polarity of the neutron flow," the man, the Doctor, said with a tight grin.

Cassia was taken aback. "You're doing _what_?"

"Reversing the polarity!" the Doctor repeated, changing the settings on his sonic screwdriver and repeating the process.

"Doctor," Cassia said, "that doesn't make any sense."

"I know," the Doctor agreed, as another bout of atmospheric turbulence nearly shook the _Trennia_ apart around them. Cassia had to shut her mouth and clench her jaw tight to prevent a sudden upchuck reflex, a sign of her disastrously upset stomach. "But if it works…"

Cassia frowned, despite the tremendous stress she was under. The Doctor's voice was strained even tighter than hers, and he'd lost a great deal of colour from his face. Despite the extremes of temperature they'd encountered on the planet below, during their escape from the turbocannon factory, he'd never shown any physical discomfort; she was sure he'd sprung a flop sweat, and she knew it had nothing to do with their precarious situation.

He was scared, she realised, all because of what they'd discovered on Ford XVII's single moon.

The shuttle tore through the atmosphere, its sonic boom echoing out behind it across half a continent. Ford XVII, the seventeeth of the Ford-class factory worlds, was covered from pole to pole in industrial facilities.

It should never have been populated by living, breathing people, but when the Doctor and his companion Sophie had arrived just a few hours before, they had discovered an entire culture on the planet; a culture of exploited slave-workers, toiling away in the depths of the planet's factories, which, far from the clean, robotic producers of consumer goods that history had recorded, relentlessly turned out weapons.

The Doctor and Sophie had been captured by Security Section, the humans that worked as soldiers and enforcers for the mysterious overlords of the planet, known only as the Managers. They'd found themselves in a factory dedicated to building turbocannons, powerful weapons capable of hurling projectiles across vast, indeed astronomical, distances.

Only with the help of a turncoat Security Section officer named Raflog, in reality a member of a secret resistance movement dedicated to overthrowing the Managers, and Cassia, had they managed to escape from the factory, eventually reaching one of the resistance's hidden colonies, deep beneath Ford XVII's surface. Cassia had shown the Doctor the small spaceship the resistance had been building, which they'd desperately named _Trennia_ to gather together some last minute luck as they tried to break orbit.

The Doctor had finally gotten the craft to work, and he and Cassia had left Sophie behind with Raflog and the leader of the colony, a woman named Artraya, so that they could investigate Ford XVII's moon.

Long ago, that moon had been a terraformed tropical paradise, replete with lush jungles interspersed with warm, shallow lagoons. The legion of organic workers required to maintain the vast robotic factories had been houses there; Raflog had lived there, long ago, and had been on the planet when all communications to the moon had suddenly been knocked off-line. He and his team had never managed to return home.

The Managers had arrived, and they'd immediately seized control of the planet.

The Doctor and Cassia had just seen the moon themselves, and they'd found a ball of radioactive rock orbiting the factory world, a nuclear wasteland. The lagoons had been boiled away, just as the oceans of Ford XVII had long since been drained. The atmosphere had been stripped, the jungles turned to ash. All that remained was a wicked-looking citadel, armed to the teeth and terrifyingly familiar.

Despite the hell currently enfolding the little ship, the Doctor's hearts beat faster at the thought of that ziggurat, standing tall amongst the ruins of a dead world. He had recognised its builders immediately, and had realised seconds later the true identity of the Managers.

"The Daleks," he said to himself, and Cassia whipped her head around.

"What, Doctor?" the girl demanded.

"Nothing," he promised her, and he readjusted the settings on his screwdriver once again, plunging it in closer to the console. Almost imperceptibly, the pitch of the electroproton accelerators that acted as the ship's rudimentary propulsion system went up; suddenly, Cassia's console, which had become a mess of flashing lights, blinked off and then back on.

"I've got control!" she said, shock clear in her voice.

"Then decelerate the ship as quickly as you can," the Doctor told her, as he continued to press his sonic screwdriver into the console. "I can't keep this up for long."

"Right," Cassia said, and the Doctor felt the g-forces lessening on him as the shuttle began to slow down. The turbulence ceased, and the flames on the nose cone died away. Atmospheric drag and the electroproton accelerators, hampered as they were now by a feedback loop generated by the screwdriver, acted in concert to keep the craft aloft and stable.

The Doctor dared a glance out the forward viewport; in the distance, he could make out the enormous structures that made up the turbocannon factory precinct, and the enormous metal silos nearby that had once been the fuel tanks of an automated spaceport. Those silos housed the entrance to the resistance's colony, and a small warehouse hidden in the complex was the shuttle's landing zone.

"We're still coming in too fast," the Doctor chided Cassia. "Those silos are coming on a bit too quickly."

Below them now were rows upon rows of warehouses and hovels for the worker population. The Doctor come make out the tiny, gnat-like shapes of hovering robotic dones.

"I know, I know," Cassia said, through gritted teeth. "I'm doing the best I can."

"Come on, Cassia," the Doctor said, and he reached out to touch her shoulder. "You can do it. You can make it!"

"I know I can!" was all the young woman said, and with one hand still on the controls, she began flipping switches on her console at random. The shuttle shuddered like never before as the Doctor heard something detach from its belly.

"That was the main thruster assembly!" the Doctor protested.

"I know," Cassia repeated, "but most of them are broken, their throttles stuck open and we can't afford that much thrust driving us."

The Doctor nodded; yes, they were lighter now and more aerodynamic without the bulky thruster assembly bolted to the bottom of the ship, but they also had fewer engines powering them, and those engines were almost all functioning perfectly.

The Doctor shut his eyes, and without even looking he adjusted the settings on the screwdriver. He thumbed it into life again, and suddenly the ship stopped accelerating. The hull was no longer vibrating. Now, instead of piloting a flaming, broken brick, Cassia had a responsive, nimble craft at her fingertips.

"You did it!" Cassia cried.

"We're not out of the woods yet," the Doctor warned.

The ship shook again, and the Doctor could smell something burning. One of the thrusters had just worked its way free of the hull, and was probably well on its way to crashing into the city below. He found himself hoping that it wouldn't hit anyone on the way down.

"Damn it," Cassia cursed, "I've only got three functioning thrusters left."

The Doctor mumbled something under his breath, a choice curse from the backstreets of Yoralla Prime, and realised there was nothing left for him to do. The ship was, now, either going to crash and burn or make it, and it was all up to chance and Cassia's largely untested skill as a pilot.

"I can't do anything else," the Doctor warned her.

"It shouldn't matter," Cassia said, "airspeed is coming down. I have enough power left to get us into the hangar, but I'm not sure if we'll be in one piece."

A klaxon blared on the Doctor's console, and he checked the readouts. He swallowed, not impressed with what he was seeing. "That's not good," he muttered to himself, but Cassia heard him.

"What is it, Doctor?"

He found himself hesitating to tell her truth, but he reminded himself that he'd spent enough of his lives trying to shield people from hard truths. "Half the structural braces have started to splinter. You might be right; we might not make it in one piece."

Cassia gave a harsh, bitter laugh that made her sound far older, and far more cynical, than her years belied. "Oh, God, I knew it wasn't going to be that easy."

The Doctor sighed, and adjusted the settings on her sonic screwdriver again. He turned, and was about to use it to send vibrations up the structural braces to tighten the molecular structure of the metal and keep the ship together for a little while longer.

Just as he pressed the activation key, the ship hit another rough patch as a second engine came free from the craft. The screwdriver leapt from his hands and smashed against the bulkhead; the tip fractured and sparked, burning the Doctor's hands as he tried to grab it.

"Ouch!" he cried in shock.

Picking up the screwdriver, he saw that it was burnt out; he might be able to get some limited functionality out of it, but the device was all but useless now.

"My screwdriver," he whined.

"Doctor!" Cassia chided, "would you please focus?"

"But I love my screwdriver," he said, crestfallen.

"Doctor!" she roared, as the shuttle once again shook around then, seeming as though it was damn near about to finally fall apart.

"Right you are," the Doctor said, tossing the screwdriver over his shoulder. He heard it strike the rear bulkhead and clatter to the decking. "I'm going to feed the last of the power reserves to the engines."

"Why?" Cassia asked, as another screech filled the cabin.

"Because we just lost another engine," the Doctor said, and he continued to manipulate controls, trying to draw out every watt of power he could from the little shuttle.

They had just flown past the silos, and Cassia was beginning to reorient the craft, struggling to stay aloft on a solitary, failing engine. The Doctor could make out the small hangar they resistance had built the shuttle in. He found himself offering prayers to every deity he could think of, including the several he had met and the others he'd destroyed, hoping that they'd offer enough a spiritual boost to safely land the ship.

The hangar rose up to meet them, its doors already open. Within, the Doctor saw the makeshift workshop that had been used to build the ship; it was still coming up too fast.

"Full reverse on the last engine!" Cassia screamed, and flipped one last switch.

The ship finally fell apart; all at once, the eletroproton accelerator reversed its thrust entirely before being torn off the hull by the force of its own inertia. That same motion finally snapped the support braces, and the ship was torn in half with a horrendous cry of rent metal.

The two people inside slammed hard against the crash webbing that kept them strapped into their seats, and with cries of shock they were distracted from the fate made inevitable by velocity and gravity.

The forward half sailed cleanly into the hangar, with the rear half slammed with force into the roof, ploughing through it with abandon until it finally tore through the metal and sailed through the air, eventually coming to a rest lodged in the shell of one of the ancient, rusting silos. The forward half of the shuttle struck the floor of the hangar at speed, gouging a deep groove into the metal. It demolished the interior of the hangar, and finally came to a rest pressed against the rear wall of the chamber.

The ruins of the shuttle sparked for a few moments before the last of its power was exhausted and everything went dark.


	37. Weapons of the Daleks: 2

**'Weapons of the Daleks'**

_Nine_

* * *

><p>Sophie Freeman shivered involuntarily as the creature that had identified itself to her as a Dalek in the cavern beneath the rebel colony glided past her on another circuit. Mythologised and feared by the residents of Ford XVII, trapped as they were in the life of menial, constant work in the disgusting, crowded factories, as the Managers, the Daleks had killed thousands, and had very nearly killed Sophie herself. Now, she stood in a dark room, beneath a bright light. A few metres away from her stood an older man, the turncoat Security Section agent named Raflog, stooped with exhaustion and injury.<p>

Sophie was willow-thin, with pale skin, enormous green eyes and brown hair. A generous splattering of freckles dotted her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, and her clothes were torn and dirtied, first from her escape alongside the Doctor from the turbocannon factory, then her trek through the sewers and the industrial wastes of Ford XVII.

She shivered, hugging her shoulders to fight against the cold that pervaded this chamber; though Ford XVII had been too cool for her to find comfortable, at least outside of the confines of the rebel colony, which had been lit and kept warm by enormous sun lamps that allowed the colony's plantlife and crops to undergo photosynthesis, the cold hear sank into her bones.

More likely it was the fear elicited by the Dalek and its compatriots that made her cold; four of them had led the attack on the colony, and one had cornered her, Raflog, the colony's leader Artraya and a young guard named Vrin, in an escape tunnel beneath the colony.

Sophie watched the Dalek as it circled she and Raflog again. Something about its shape and its movements just screamed menace to her. The long eyestalk, rotating back and forth, the plunger-like manipular arm, the raised semi-spheroids that ran up and down its lower half. Most terrifying of all was the gunstick, situated beside the manipulator arm on the Dalek's chassis.

The sound made by the weapon as it fired was enough to turn her stomach, but she'd seen first hand the results of being hit by that weapon.

Half of the cavern she, Raflog, Artraya and Vrin had escape to had been destroyed by one blast, burying Vrin beneath a rockfall.

She'd felt the power of the weapon as it washed over Artraya, felt electrical energy rake across her skin; for a moment the older woman's skeleton had been contrasted against the flash of the blast. Sophie could still hear her screams of agony as the energies cooked her from the inside out. Artraya had fallen to the ground, reduced to nothing more than a smoking corpse.

Sophie and Raflog had been confronted by the Dalek, then, and surrounded by officers of the Security Section, including Raflog's ex-partner, Jenna. That same woman had first cornered she and the Doctor inside the turbocannon factory, and Sophie supposed that she'd since pursued them single-mindedly.

The Dalek had ordered she and Raflog transferred to the planet's moon, which Sophie thought must have been their base. Sophie had expected to be hustled from the escape tunnel back up into the colony, and from there to the planet's surface and put on a spaceship or something. Instead, she, Raflog and the Dalek had been swallowed up by a beam of light and then she and the old man had deposited here, inside an enormous, dark room.

She'd been queasy, disoriented, but a powerful light had come on, which, strangely, had done nothing to warm the cold room, and she'd suddenly felt the air grow electric.

The Dalek completed another circuit.

"Where are we?" Sophie said, taking in a deep breath to finally settle her stomach.

"I don't know," Raflog said, and she realised that he sounded pained.

She was going to turn to comfort him, but she found that she couldn't move. "What the hell?" she demanded, struggling to move her arm.

"That light is a neural paralysis field," Raflog explained. "You have no conscious control of the muscles below your neck."

"Then why is the Dalek here?" Sophie asked, craning her neck to follow the creature as it circled them again. "I mean, if we can't move."

"I can't pretend to understand the Managers," Raflog said, evidently uncomfortably; Sophie heard pain in his voice, and, though he'd treated her and the Doctor with little more than distrust and hostility since he'd met them, she'd come to respect him. She knew the destruction of the colony must be crushing him.

"Raflog, I—," she began, but he cut her off.

"Don't say it, Sophie," Raflog said, and she heard a razor blade in his tone. "It's your fault."

She felt like she'd been punched in the stomach. Her eyes widened in surprise; yes, she was going to apologise for the role she'd played in bringing Security Section and their Dalek overlords down on top of the colony, but to hear it said to her outright hurt.

"Look, I'm sorry," she said.

"There's no way you could have known what was going to happen," Raflog answered, and Sophie felt that if he could have shrugged, he would have. "I don't blame you, Ms. Freeman, though it is your fault that the colony was destroyed. Yours and the Doctor's. And mine."

She was taken aback by this addition. "What do you mean?"

"I blew my cover," Raflog said. "I gave Jenna a reason to hunt us down, to lead the Managers right to the colony. I doomed them all just as much as you and the Doctor did. What were you thinking, coming hear the way you did?"

Sophie swallowed. "I don't know," she admitted. "I don't even know if we _were_ thinking. We just kind of show up in places sometimes."

Raflog gritted his teeth. "Maybe you should _start_ thinking, then."

Sophie froze, uncomfortable, and she suddenly realised why; the Dalek had stopped its circuits around the two frozen prisoners, and had set its glowing eyestalk on her. It was watching her intently.

Sophie knew next to nothing about the Daleks, but the Doctor had told her some things about them while he and she were trawling through the sewers beneath the turbocannon factory on their way with Raflog and Cassia to the colony. She knew enough to be terrified of them, and the glow of that eyestalk seemed to cut into her. She shivered again.

"What do you want?" she spat at it, and from the corner of her eye she saw Raflog recoil.

The Dalek didn't move, but it did speak in its horrid, screeching voice. "**You are an associate of the Doctor.**"

The creature had said something similar in the caverns beneath the colony. Sophie had been surprised by its knowledge then, but too shocked to ask how it knew that about her. "How do you know?" she asked, and despite her best efforts, her voice faltered.

"**My scans reveal that your molecular structure has been infused with chronon energy,**" the Dalek announced. "**You are the source of temporal emissions of an unidentified nature. The best explanation is that you travelled in the TARDIS.**"

Sophie swallowed, unsure what to say. She knew of chronon energy; when she and Doctor had visited Siena in 1633, where they'd met with Galileo Galilei, she'd been briefly captured by a demonic cult. They'd wanted to use her to bring back the Vrigillian they'd worshipped. The Vrigillian was a long-dead creature that fed off of the energies contained in blood. Sophie's blood had been soaked in chronon energy, and even a few drops of the Doctor's blood, exposed to far more chronon energy by his centuries of travelling in the TARDIS than Sophie ever would have been, had been enough to resurrect the monster.

The Dalek advanced towards her, and if she had been able to move, she would have recoiled. "**What is the nature of your affiliation with the Doctor?**"

Sophie blinked. "I barely know him."

"**That is a lie,**" the Dalek screeched.

"It's not!" Sophie protested.

The Dalek's gunstick twitched as it stared at her down the length of its eyestalk. "**Your heart rate elevated, your pupils dilated. Your statement has been designated a lie!**"

If that thing could detect her heart rate, and see her pupils dilating even across that distance, she shuddered to think what else it might be able to find out about her.

"**You have one more chance,**" the Dalek said, "**you will state the nature of affiliation with the Doctor or you will be exterminated!**"

"I'm his companion," Sophie choked out. "I travel with him."

"**You are unknown to the Daleks,**" the creature told her. "**You have been designated dangerous, and you will be interrogated.**"

"The Doctor told me about you," Sophie said.

The Dalek said nothing, and simply continued to watch her. Raflog had watched this back and forth, his expression inscrutable. It turned away from her and glided over towards the old man. It watched him closely for a few seconds, before turning back to Sophie.

It examined her, its eyestalk tracking up and down, taking her in.

"He told me you were monsters," Sophie said. "After what you did to Artraya, I'm inclined to agree with him."

"**The individual named Artraya was extemporaneous,**" the Dalek told her. "**She was exterminated.**"

"Is that what you do?" Sophie challenged; she had no idea from where she was pulling her reserves of courage. Despite everything she'd gone through with the Doctor, she'd never been this terrified. Even watching literally everyone she'd ever known vanish off the face of the Earth, being hunted by crazed robots in a living building driven insane by a disease that had infected its biological circuits, or getting captured by the cult in Siena, paled in comparison to the utter sense of dread she felt crushing her now.

She'd never been a wallflower or a shrinking violet, but the Doctor had encouraged her, indeed _forced_ her, to become braver than she'd ever thought possible. The knowledge that the Dalek could kill her at any moment simply brought her hackles up even higher. If she was going to go down, she resolved, she was going to go down fighting.

"**Clarify,**" the Dalek ordered.

Sophie smirked. "Do you just exterminate people? Blast them the way you did Artraya? Murder them?"

The Dalek seemed almost surprised by the questions. "**Of course.**"

Sophie could have screamed from the mixture of frustration and fear, but instead she gritted her teeth and said, "What do you want from me?"

The Dalek considered her for a moment. "**What is your name?**"

"My name is Sophie Freeman," she said, frowning. Something inside her didn't want to tell this thing any more than she absolutely had to, but something else told her to get it to continue talking. The longer she could draw out the conversation, she thought, the more likely it would be that the Doctor would find her and get her the hell out of this, just like in Newcastle, just like in Siena.

"Sophie Freeman," the Dalek repeated, as though tasting the names, trying them out. Hearing her own name spoken by that creature was enough to turn her blood to ice. "**What do you know of the Doctor?**"

Sophie looked to Raflog, but his expression was impassive. "I know he's… I know he's your enemy."

The Dalek said nothing for a moment, before "**What do you know of the TARDIS?**"

Sophie remembered how Raflog had insisted that the Managers would have taken possession of the TARDIS immediately after they'd fled the turbocannon factory. Suddenly, she felt a spike of hope course through her, realising that the TARDIS was probably somewhere nearby.

"It's his ship," Sophie said, "his home."

"**Do you know how to get inside the vessel?**" the Dalek demanded.

The TARDIS was a mystery to Sophie, but she knew enough about it to know that it could be incredibly dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. A time machine, capable of travelling anywhere in the universe, throughout history, could be a dangerous weapon. She felt the TARDIS key the Doctor had given her during their trip to Siena, sitting in the pocket of her jeans.

Taking a deep breath, Sophie tried to imagine that her heart was motionless red rock. One of her grief counsellors had suggested meditation to her as a way to focus when the sorrow of her parents' death had threatened to crush her, when a panic attack had been building up inside of her. She imagined her heart was still, and still it became. She shut her eyes.

"I might," Sophie decided to say, finally.

The Dalek studied her for a moment; she hoped that she managed to control her bodily functions enough to hide the small half-truth she'd just told the Dalek. Even though she had a key, technically she had no way to know whether or not it would work.

Before the Dalek could say anything else, the room was suddenly flooded with light. Sophie blinked, wishing she could shield her eyes, as two more Daleks rolled into the chamber.

"**You will come with us!**" the lead Dalek roared, its screeching voice echoing through the dark room. Sophie realised with a start that it was talking to her.

"**The prisoner has not yet been adequately interrogated,**" the Dalek that had been talking to her protested. The other Dalek ignored it, and glided to a halt directly in front of Sophie. The third Dalek moved into position behind. She craned her neck to try and see it, but she couldn't.

Raflog looked distinctly uncomfortable, but he still said nothing.

"**That is irrelevant,**" the other Dalek told its compatriot. "**She is required!**"

"**Understood,**" the first Dalek screeched, and the light above Sophie dimmed for a moment. Suddenly, she could move again. She shrugged, shaking her hands, trying to get them loose, but the adrenalin of being cornered by the Daleks kept her rooted to the spot.

The Dalek behind her glided forward, and it nudged her, none too gently, with its gunstick. "**You will move!**"

"No," she said, quietly.

The Dalek seemed taken aback. "**Repeat.**"

"No!" Sophie said, louder; she hoped her voice wasn't quavering as obviously as she thought it was.

"**What is the meaning of this negative?**" the Dalek before her demanded.

Her breathing was coming in short, shallow fits; she knew she was bordering on a panic attack, despite her best efforts to get her breathing under control. She was terrified, she knew, and her bravado in the face of the Daleks was her last-ditch attempt to retain some dignity in the face of death, as well as a gambit to buy time for the Doctor. She knew, deep in her guts, that he already knew she'd been captured, and even if he didn't he'd find out soon enough.

"It means no," she managed to say, quietly. "I'm not going anywhere!"

The Dalek behind her seemed to quiver with rage as it screeched "**You will move or you will be exterminated!**"

"No," Sophie said again, quietly. "You're not going to kill me. You need me to get into the TARDIS for you."

The Dalek in front of her turned its gunstick downwards, and fired a blast into the floor. The high-pitched squeal of the cannon hurt her ears, and Sophie felt the hairs on her arms and the nape of her neck stand up as the electrical energy of the blast washed over her.

She let out a small scream, but held her ground.

The Dalek came close, its glowing eyestalk directly level with her face. She could feel a presence, watching her closely. "**You will come with us.**"

"**You will come with us,**" repeated the Dalek behind her, "**or we will exterminate him.**"

Sophie turned, just in time to see the Dalek's gunstick twitch towards Raflog. The man's eyes widened, and his breathing grew faster. Sophie got the feeling that, were he able to move, he'd be shivering with fear. He looked at her, but his eyes betrayed nothing.

"I'm sorry," she said. Turning to the Daleks, she said "I'll come with you and I'll help, as long as you keep him alive."

"No," Raflog said, but the Daleks spoke over him.

"**That is acceptable,**" the Dalek in front of her, evidently the leader, said. "**He will not be exterminated as long as you cooperate with the Daleks!**"

"Don't do it, Sophie!" Raflog called. "They'll kill us all anyway. You know that!"

"I'm sorry," she repeated, and she offered the man a small, conciliatory smile. "I'm so sorry for everything, but too many people have already died because of me. I'm not going to let them kill you, too."

Raflog shook his head, and she saw that tears were flowing. "Don't help them, Sophie."

"I don't have a choice," she said.

"**Correct,**" the Daleks chorused as one.

Sophie swallowed, and took a few steps forward. The Dalek that had been interrogating her watched her with its eyestalk, as the interloping creatures escorted her from the darkened room. She threw a glance over her shoulder at Raflog. He stood there, illuminated by the paralysis field, watching her leave with steel in his eyes.

The Daleks led her into a corridor of shining metal walls, and as the door into the chamber she and Raflog had been teleported into irised shut, she saw his stony expression crack. The unadulterated terror and shame on his face broke her heart.

"**Move!**" the Daleks ordered and, reluctantly, she began to move off down the corridor. She couldn't shake sight of Raflog, broken and defeated.

* * *

><p>The Dalek examined Raflog down the length of its eyestalk. The old man wanted to scream at the beast, but he couldn't summon the strength; after everything, his years of living undercover with Security Section, sneaking subversives in and out of the turbocannon factory, doing everything he could to ensure the continuation of the resistance and the safety of the colony, it had all come down to this.<p>

He'd sacrificed everything, lost everything, for a young girl and her alien friend. The Doctor had been an impressive man, for sure, but he was still a stranger, and his actions had condemned the colony. So, Raflog realised with not a small amount of guilt, had his own. He should have killed Jenna when he'd had the chance. He'd worked with that woman long enough to know that she'd be dogged in her pursuit of him.

The Dalek considered him for a few more moments.

'Dalek'. The word just felt wrong to him. He'd heard, as a little boy living on Ford XVII's moon, a moon he suspected he had once again set foot on after being exiled to Ford XVII for decades, of the Daleks. Ancient, terrifying monsters who had destroyed entire worlds, but creatures of myth.

The Managers, as he'd known the Daleks, were frighteningly real. Dark, distant manipulators, whose visits heralded death and destruction. Now he was face to face with one of them, unable to move, and he knew he was going to die, despite whatever Faustian bargain Sophie had just made with them.

"**You are Raflog,**" the Dalek said, slowly.

Raflog said nothing.

The Dalek considered his silence. "**You have information on the resistance.**"

Again, Raflog kept quiet, but he felt his heart beating faster in his chest.

"**You will talk.**"

"No," Raflog answered; he thought of Sophie's stand against the Daleks monents before. He'd found himself admiring the young woman, even if he'd found her actions to be utterly foolhardy. "I won't."

"**You do not have a choice,**" the Dalek announced.

"You promised Sophie you'd keep me alive," Raflog protested, but he knew it was pointless.

"**You will survive,**" the Dalek assured him, but that did little to comfort him; he was positive that whatever it was the creature was going to do to him would be worse than death. He'd seen a blast from the Daleks cook Artraya from the inside out, and he'd heard her screams of pain, but even that agony would have to end eventually.

He was about to be tortured, and the idea terrified him.

Raflog saw its plunger-tipped manipulator arm extend towards him. He tried to pull away, but the paralysis field held him tight. As the manipulator arm closed over his face, he gave a horrified, desperate scream, but only the Dalek was there to hear him.

Even as his world went black and he felt the Dalek intruding into his consciousness, he thought of Cassia and prayed she'd survived her trip into orbit with the Doctor.


	38. Weapons of the Daleks: 3

**'Weapons of the Daleks'**

_Eleven_

* * *

><p>The Doctor came awake in stages. First, he felt pain; his entire body was aching, and his hearts were beating too slowly. He opened his eyes, and it took a while for anything to become visible. Blinking a few times, he found himself staring at a metal wall through a shattered view port. The console he'd manned aboard the shuttle was pressed sharply into his chest, and it was difficult to breathe.<p>

The shuttle was a wreck. The bulkheads had crumpled inwards, spilling circuits and coolant hoses across the shattered metal. Through the broken forward viewport, the Doctor could see a battered metal wall, which he guessed must be the interior of the hangar. Slowing his thoughts for a moment, he checked to see that he was intact, all his limbs where they should be. Aside from what he supposed were a few cracked ribs from slamming into the console, he was remarkably whole.

Reaching for his crash-webbing, the Doctor found that every movement sent sharp busts of agony up his arms. His fingers closed around the webbing, and he pulled it free. His seat had wedged him against the console, but he managed to work his way out from under it.

He heard movement beside him, and his hearts leapt when he remembered his fellow crew-member.

"Cassia?" he asked, his voice little more than a harsh croak.

No words answered him, merely a string of pained sounds. He turned his neck, a slow, excruciating process of movement, and saw the young girl was pinned to her console much the way the Doctor had been.

There was a nasty gash on her forehead, and her face was ashen grey. The Doctor's hearts pounded; she was losing blood, and fast, perhaps from injuries he couldn't see. The worst case scenario, he realised, was that she was bleeding internally.

The Doctor immediately reached for the bottom of his seat, where it should have been bolted to the decking. The crash had pulled it free, but a few of the bolts still kept it sealed tight. He grasped the small emergency release lever, and he found himself glad that Cassia and the shuttle's other builders had bothered to include the feature. He tugged the lever, and the bolts popped upwards. The chair began to tip forward, but the Doctor moved quickly, shoving himself away from the console. The chair fell backwards, but far from hitting the rear bulkhead of the shuttle's cabin, it rolled out of the shuttle altogether.

The Doctor managed to pull himself out in time, and the chair clattered to the floor of the hangar, coming to a rest in the deep gouge caused by the shuttle's final, desperate descent.

Without wasting another second, he went to Cassia's side. His fingers felt out the pulse in her throat. It was weak, thready, but it was definitely there.

"Doctor," she muttered, though her eyes weren't open.

"I'm here," he assured her. "You'll be fine."

"I'd better be," she whispered, but her voice was growing ever weaker.

Still, the Doctor respected a sense of humour in the face of grave danger, and he couldn't help but smile. He felt around of the release lever on the bottom of Cassia's chair but couldn't find it. It must have snapped off during the crash.

Cursing the damage done to his screwdriver, the Doctor instead went for the console. There had to be some way of removing it; once he managed that, he'd easily be able to work the young woman free.

"There's a medkit," Cassia said, "strapped to the back of the console."

"You don't need a medkit yet," the Doctor told her.

"I do," she nodded. "Adrenalin. It'll keep me conscious."

The Doctor couldn't see the medkit, and the space behind the console was now a sparking morass of broken components. The Doctor squinted, and beneath a writhing live wire, he made out the small white box, affixed with a green crescent. The universal symbol of hospitals and health was omnipresent in the universe, even on Ford XVII.

"Can you move your arms and legs, Cassia?" the Doctor asked her as he considered how he was going to reach the medkit. "We have to make sure that you haven't injured your spine."

Cassia twitched her fingers, and said "I can wiggle my toes."

The Doctor grinned. "Excellent. That means all I have to do is get the console out of the way, and then we work you free."

"Medkit first, Doctor," she reminded him, and he glanced back at the sparking wire. He sucked in a breath; he could survive an electrocution, but it wasn't exactly the most pleasant sensation and, quite apart from that consideration, he had no idea how it might affect the shuttle. Cassia might well be shocked, too, and as a human she didn't have a hope of surviving it.

Closing his eyes, he pulled his hand back into the sleeve of his coat, and he snaked his arm around the wire. He pulled the box up, as the wire whipped towards him before sparking its last. He quickly opened the box, and found, amongst the bandages and emergency ampoules of antibiotics and painkillers, a shot of adrenaline.

He jabbed the shot into Cassia's arm, and she sucked in a quick breath. The Doctor checked her pulse, and was happy to feel in increasing; keeping her conscious now was important, but he was worried that, if she was bleeding from a wound other than the one on her forehead, that the adrenaline would just increase blood loss. He found a clotting agent in the kit and injected her with it, before applying a patch to the cut on her forehead.

"How are you feeling?" he asked her.

"Better," she admitted, "but everything hurts now."

The Doctor offered her a small grin. "All right, we'll get you out now."

"Thank God," she said. The Doctor found the point where the console was connected to the bulkhead, and felt along the join until he located the emergency release lever.

"It's a good thing you included all of these safety features," the Doctor told her.

Cassia laughed weakly. "My idea. No way I was going up unless there was a triple redundancy on every system."

"Except the engines," the Doctor teased.

"Yeah, well," Cassia countered, "we all make compromises, don't we?"

The Doctor grinned as he pulled the lever. The console didn't come all the way free, but the Doctor was able to tilt it up now, relieving the pressure on Cassia's chest. "Come on," he urged her, "you should be able to slip out now."

Cassia pulled free the crash webbing, and slowly, painstakingly, picked her way free from her position beneath the console, finally falling from the seat into the Doctor's arms. He pulled her without waiting from the shuttle, back through the rear of the cabin. Together, they fell to the floor of the hangar, the Doctor helping to cushion the girl's fall.

Lying there, on the battered deck, the Doctor said "Can you walk?"

"Yeah," Cassia said, and she pushed herself up. The Doctor followed, and saw she was wobbly on her feet. Keeping her steady with an outstretched arm on her elbow, looked around. The hangar was empty, just as it had been when they'd first come up here with Vrin and Artraya.

"You're probably in shock," the Doctor told her. "Once we get back to the colony, I want you to lie down for a while."

"You won't get any arguments from me," Cassia said, sounding a little queasy. Something gave her pause though; she frowned for a moment, considering. "Hang on."

"What's wrong?"

"There's no one here," Cassia said.

"No," the Doctor agreed, unsure where she was going; the colony was home to only five hundred people, after all, and he was sure most of them had jobs to do and lives to live quite apart from their harebrained attempt to get into space.

"But surely someone would have heard us crash," Cassia said, "or seen it happen on the cameras."

"The shuttle probably destroyed the cameras," the Doctor said, but he realised that she had a point. "Someone would have noticed that, though."

Cassia nodded. "Exactly."

The Doctor's hearts stopped. In orbit, Cassia had been so worried that the colony was about to be attacked. He realised, in horror, that she'd been right. From the look of horror on her face, the Doctor saw that Cassia had come to the same conclusion.

"Come with me!" she demanded, and immediately turned and ran for the entrance to the tunnel that would lead them back down to the colony. She only got a few steps before she stumbled, and the Doctor caught her by the arm.

"Don't push yourself too hard," the Doctor warned her. "I need your help, Cassia, and you'll do me no good if you pass out."

She shrugged herself free of him and didn't bother to say anything else as she continued towards the tunnel. Slipping inside, the Doctor followed her into the cramped, stone-walled excavation. The tunnel descended sharply, and Cassia wasted no time. She was practically running, something far easier for her petite form in the cramped space than it was for the tall, broad-shouldered Doctor, who barely fit.

She burst from the end of the tunnel, not even bothering to slow down, and as the Doctor followed he heard her cry of shock and disgust.

The first thing he noticed was the smell; smoke and burnt flesh. He'd stood on enough battlefields, experienced enough destruction, to recognise violent death by its smell. Something made his hair stand on end, too, a slight tingle of electricity that suffused the atmosphere.

He realised, with horror, that he knew exactly what had caused this. The Daleks had been here.

"Oh my God," Cassia said, gaping at the destruction that spread out before her. They were standing on the uppermost tier of the colony. Only one of the sunlamps bolted to the cavern's ceiling high above still functioned, and it was spluttering weakly.

Smoke hung thick in the air, and the Doctor saw the bodies of dead colonists lying on the tier's decking. Among them, though, he saw a few uniforms of shining silver. Security Section.

Immediately, the Doctor knew what had happened here. Security Section must have followed he, Sophie, Raflog and Cassia from the turbocannon factory, and brought with them the Daleks. The Managers, as the inhabitants of Ford XVII had known them. They would have fallen upon the colonists with nothing but wrath and anger, and though the dead that lay stretched out on the decking before him would no doubt have put up a valiant struggle, the Doctor knew that it would have been, ultimately, quite hopeless.

Cassia ran from the tunnel, over to the railing that ringed the edge of the tier. The Doctor followed, and found himself looking down on a burnt out wreck; the middle and lowest tiers of the colony, in its stadium-like cavern, had been utterly destroyed.

The paradisiacal garden that had dominated the ground tier had been turned into so much ash. Embers still smouldered, and the Doctor was reminded of the radioactive surface of the planet's faraway moon.

"Oh my God," Cassia repeated, her voice small. Tears cut shining paths down her cheeks as she looked down on the devastation. "They're all dead."

"We don't know that," the Doctor told her, and he was hoping against hope that she was wrong; Sophie had to be alive. She had to be. So many of his friends had been killed because of their association with him and he had sworn to himself that he wouldn't let Sophie join their number.

"They are," Cassia said, shaking.

The Doctor took the girl by her arms and gave her a gentle shake. "Focus, Cassia!" he demanded.

She looked at him, her eyes remarkably clear, but she said nothing and couldn't stop shaking.

"These people died, yes," he said, "but that doesn't mean that everyone did. Come on; you people seem obsessed with redundancies, with emergency protocols. Think, Cassia! If this place was under attack, where would everyone go?"

Cassia trembled for a moment, before she found her voice. "There are escape tunnels. Down on the lowest level. A bunch of them. They're designed to be collapsed after the people have evacuated."

The Doctor nodded, and gave her an encouraging smile. "Well, that's a start! Come on, then!"

He turned and began to head towards the tunnels cut into the cavern walls that led down to the lower tiers. Cassia, however, didn't follow him.

"This is your fault," she said.

The Doctor sighed. "It's not, Cassia. Sooner or later, the Daleks would have found the colony. Yes, my arrival here hastened theirs, and for that I am truly, deeply sorry, but you and I don't have time to worry about that right now. I promise you, we can beat Security Section, we can beat the Managers. We can kick the Daleks off of this planet. We need to find out what happened to everyone first. What happened to Raflog and Vrin and Artraya…"

"And Sophie," Cassia added, and she sighed, her shoulders relaxing. "You're right, Doctor."

He smiled, and took her hand. "Come on, Cassia. Stick with me. Everything'll be fine."

Together, the two made their way down from the uppermost tier. Cassia insisted on checking the lower tier, but they couldn't find anyone alive down there, nor any sign of movement whatsoever, aside from smouldering ruins. The smoke was thicker here, and they couldn't stay for long.

By the time they reached the lowest tier, their clothes, already in a state from their escape from the factory and their adventure aboard _Trennia_, were soot-stained.

"I'm going to have throw out this coat," the Doctor opined as they reached the lowest tier. "It's a shame. I really like this coat."

Cassia shot him an unappreciative look.

The Doctor shrugged apologetically. "I'm sorry, Cassia. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but when you've seen as much death and destruction as I have, humour becomes a necessary tool."

"You would say that, wouldn't you," Cassia said dismissively. "You haven't just walked in to your home to find it destroyed, and everyone you've ever known or cared about missing, more than likely dead."

"I know what it's like to lose everything, Cassia," the Doctor told her. "Believe me, I understand how you must feel more than you could know, but you must also believe me when I tell you that they didn't die for nothing. Security Section knows we're here. The Daleks must know that I'm hear. They're scared, which means that they're going to make a mistake, which means that I'll see it and exploit it. I will win, Cassia, I promise."

"You're too confident," Cassia said, shaking her head. She hadn't stopped crying.

"No," the Doctor told her, though it sounded more like some kind of promise. "I'm just optimistic."

With that, he pulled her into a long, tight hug. He felt her sob against him, and only squeezed her tighter. He thought of Sophie as he did. He wondered how she'd experienced the attack; he felt sure that she'd survived, but something told her that she hadn't managed to escape. If the Daleks had her, he knew that her time was running out.

Finally, he let Cassia go, and the girl wiped her tears, before nodding and smiling. "Thank you, Doctor."

"No, Cassia, thank you," he said, and, hand-in-hand once again, they went downstairs to the lowermost tier. The smoke here was much thinner, and Cassia led him across the cavern floor, now little more than ash, to a set of tunnels that had been cut into the rock. All but one had collapsed.

"They must have gotten out through them," Cassia said. "The tunnels had explosives set into the walls, which were meant to be triggered once they'd gotten a certain number of people out."

"Then what about this one?" the Doctor asked, standing in front of the tunnel that still stood open.

"Maybe they just never got a chance to activate the explosives," Cassia said.

"Or maybe no one tried to escape down this particular tunnel," the Doctor countered, but he dismissed that option as soon as he mooted it. "No, no, unless that tunnel led somewhere really undesirable, it's not like people fleeing in a blind panic from Daleks would avoid any escape route offered to them. Speaking of, where does this tunnel lead?"

"Same place they all do," Cassia said, "back up to the surface."

"Do they just go straight up?"

Cassia shook her head. "No. Some of them do, but mostly they follow natural cavern formations for a while. They come up in different parts of the abandoned spaceport."

"What do the escapees do then?" the Doctor asked, still examining the tunnel.

"Go to ground," Cassia said. "They'll spread out, find places to hide, maybe work their way to the other colonies."

"They'll be safe, at least," the Doctor said. "As safe as anyone on this planet can be at any rate."

With that, he set off down the tunnel, and Cassia followed.

"Is there a way for you to get in contact with the other colonies?" the Doctor asked.

"There's a communications system," Cassia nodded, "but its use is highly classified. Only Artraya knows the access code, and even if she could be encouraged to give it to us, all of the equipment we'd need for it has been destroyed."

"There must be another way to activate it," the Doctor said. He considered for a moment. "My ship, the TARDIS, has one of the most advanced communications systems ever devised. Telepathic circuitry, don't you know?"

"No," Cassia said, voice thick with sarcasm. "I didn't."

"Nice to hear you've got that sense of humour back," the Doctor said, lightly. The only sound in the tunnel was their echoing footsteps, as he went on "Once I get her back, it won't be too hard to tap into the planet's communications systems. Send out a warning to all of the colonies; a call to arms, if you will."

"A call to arms?" Cassia asked.

"This planet is covered in munitions factories," the Doctor said. "Those men who had been killed on the upper tier were armed to the teeth. All of the colonies must have armouries, and probably have trained soldiers as well. If every colony on the planet, if every factory, rose up against Security Section and the Daleks at once, they wouldn't stand a chance."

Cassia couldn't believe her ears. "You can't do that, not in one day!"

The Doctor beheld her with a raised eyebrow. "Of course we can," he told her, "Nothing like the element of surprise."

"But you need planning," Cassia said. "Raflog and Artraya have been preparing for the uprising along with all the other leaders for years."

"Yes, and that all made sense before we knew what we were facing," the Doctor explained. "The Managers are Daleks. I can't overemphasise how dangerous those creatures truly are; they will stop at nothing to destroy anything that gets in the way of their goals. You may have planned; they'll have anticipated it. They'll anticipate everything."

"And you think you can beat them?" Cassia asked.

"I know I can beat them," the Doctor said. "I have before. I will again. They can take everything from me, over and over again, but I will always win."

"Why?" she asked him.

"Because I have to," was all he said in response. Finally, they'd reached a wider chamber in the tunnel. Half of it had collapsed, and the air was choked with dust. Terrifyingly, a body lay face down on the rock.

The Doctor recognised it immediately.

"Artraya!" Cassia said, running forward. She knelt beside the dead woman's still form, reaching down to touch her. Fresh tears spilled down the girl's cheeks.

"She's dead," the Doctor said. "I'm so sorry."

Suddenly, a sharp, spluttering cough sounded from behind them. The Doctor jumped, and whipped around in time to see a young man, covered in dust and clearly battered and beaten by the rockfall, pull himself out of the shadows.

"Cassia?" he said, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper.

Cassia turned from Artraya, and rushed to his side as the Doctor came over to join her. "Oh my God, Vrin," she said, and she cradled him to her.

The Doctor could scarcely believe that the gawky, awkward teenager he'd left behind was now lying on the floor of this cavern. Even in the darkness, the Doctor saw that his clothes were wet with a dark fluid. He was bleeding heavily, and judging by his laborious breathing and half-conscious movement, he was dying.

He knelt beside Cassia, and curved an arm over her shoulder.

"What happened, Vrin?" he asked, as kingly as he could manage.

"The Managers," the boy said, and he coughed; the Doctor saw that his pale, freckled spin was flecked with blood as much as with dirt. "Security Section attacked us. The Managers were with them. Me, Artraya and Raflog brought your friend down here, Doctor, and then they caught up with us. They shot at me but they missed, and then they killed Artraya. They called themselves the Daleks; they took them, Doctor. Raflog and Sophie. They transmatted them out of here."

"Transmats are illegal," Cassia said.

"I suppose the Daleks have a monopoly on use of the technology," the Doctor said. "Go on, Vrin."

"Raflog's old partner was here," he said. "The woman, Jenna. They left. They didn't know I was here. Oh God!"

He gave a moan of agony, and Cassia tightened her grip on him. "You'll be fine, Vrin," she promised him, but the Doctor could tell from her tone that she knew the young man, the boy, really, was going to die. "You'll be fine," she repeated.

"They've got Sophie, Doctor," Vrin said. "I'm sorry. I couldn't keep her safe."

"That's all right, Vrin," the Doctor told him. "You did well."

"Cassia," the boy said, shifting his attention to her. "I really, really like you, you know."

"Yeah," she said, doing whatever she could to stave off tears, "I know. I like you, too, Vrin. Me and the Doctor aren't going anywhere."

Together, they sat with the boy until his breathing slowed and finally stopped and his eyes closed for the last time.


	39. Weapons of the Daleks: 4

**'Weapons of the Daleks'**

_Twelve_

* * *

><p>Cassia took a few moments to sob into the Doctor's shoulders, and he let her, his arm still over her shoulder. At long last, she let out one last, long, shivering sigh and pushed herself up from the floor of the cavern. The Doctor stood, following her motions; she was staring at the bodies on the cavern floor, and what she said shocked the Doctor.<p>

"What next?"

It wasn't so much the phrase, but the way she said it. Her voice quaked with rage. The Doctor was so taken aback he couldn't say anything. She turned him, hackles evidently raised.

"You heard me, Doctor," she demanded, "what next? What do we do next?"

The Doctor swallowed. "Cassia," he began, "I want you to stop."

"Excuse me?"

"I want you to go. To follow this tunnel to the end and then go to ground," the Doctor said. "Get to one of the other colonies. Get out of harm's way."

"What?" she exclaimed. "Why?"

"Because this is dangerous," the Doctor told her, "and you've lost enough today."

"Oh, no," Cassia said. "You are not sidelining me on this. It is precisely because I have lost this much that I am now one of your best assets, Doctor. I will fight, and I will keep on fighting until I can't fight anymore."

"And that's why you're a danger," the Doctor said. "You're a wildcard, Cassia, and there's no telling what might happen if I put you in a position where you'll…"

"Where I'll what?" Cassia asked, and when he didn't respond, she pressed "Where I'll what, Doctor?"

"Where you'll be put in a position to take revenge," was all he said.

Cassia stared at him blankly. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm saying that I don't need a vigilante," the Doctor said. "I need someone reasoned and considered, who won't let their feelings get the better of them."

Cassia looked positively hurt. "How dare you."

The Doctor looked at her, holding her shoulders. "Please, Cassia, listen to me. I'm about to try and bring down a government. A dictatorial government, made up of omnicidal aliens and their blindly loyal lackeys. I need to know, Cassia, that you'll understand when to step aside. That you'll know when to do what you're told."

"Doctor, this is my planet!"

"And the Daleks are _my_ enemies," the Doctor said. "I understand them, Cassia. I know how to beat them."

"Then how are you going to do it, Doctor?"

This brought him up short. "I don't know yet."

She rolled her eyes. "Then why can't you just understand, Doctor? I want to help, and more than that, you need my help. You might know the Daleks, but I know Ford XVII, and there's no one left around to help you."

The Doctor's jaw set, but, finally, he nodded. "All right then."

"We need to figure out a plan," Cassia said, not missing a beat.

"No," the Doctor said, shaking his head and turning towards the entrance to the cavern chamber. "I already have a plan. It's putting that plan into action that'll be the difficult plan."

"I thought you didn't know what to do," Cassia asked, rushing to keep up with him.

"Oh, no, I should have been clearer," the Doctor explained as he went, "I know _what_ we have to do. I'm just not sure how exactly we're going to do it."

* * *

><p>The Daleks behind her nudged Sophie Freeman forwards. She'd been led through a few identical corridors, and she'd quickly become disoriented. There had been no decoration, no markings of any kind, and she'd quickly become lost, convinced that the Daleks were just leading her around in circles. The walls of the corridors were all silver, the floors black, and there was a constant hum in the background, an electrical buzzing not entirely unlike a mosquito.<p>

Unlike the background noises of the TARDIS, which Sophie had com to find incredibly comforting over the last few weeks, a reminder that the old ship was alive and functioning all around her, this noise put her on edge.

Of course, the armed Daleks didn't help.

Finally, they'd come to another iris-like door, and one of the Daleks had pressed its sucker-like appendage to the hemispherical control aperture beside the door. A few moments later, the door opened.

"That's the TARDIS," Sophie said when the door irised open in front of her, knocking the breath from her. She was ecstatic to see it, but terrified nonetheless; the Doctor had told her that the TARDIS was the last of its kind, much as he was, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that a machine that could travel through time and space and was larger on the inside could make a powerful weapon.

Snapping herself back to reality, she found herself looking at a well-lit, cubical room, with two tired-looking men standing at a computer console, and the tall blue box that had become her home over the last few weeks.

"**Correct,**" the Dalek beside her told her, and with a twitch of its gunstick, it ushered her inside.

The two men looked positively exhausted, but even in the minutes since she'd left the interrogation chamber, she'd found herself desperate for the sight of another human being. Anyone that wasn't encased in burnished bronze armour.

They barely looked up from their work as the Dalek hustled her inside.

"**Open the TARDIS!**" the Dalek insisted.

The men stopped, and turned to face her.

"Who's she?" one of them asked, but the other nudged him, shooting him a warning look. The man lowered his eyes, obviously scared of the Dalek.

Remembering Artraya, Sophie could guess why.

"I'm Sophie," she said, quickly, and her voice wavered as she spoke. She swallowed.

"Do you know what this thing is?" the other man asked her.

She nodded, but before she could speak one of the Daleks said "**Silence! You will open the TARDIS or you will be exterminated!**"

"You know how to open the box?" the first man asked Sophie, obviously shocked. "We've been trying for hours."

"**Open the TARDIS!**" the Dalek demanded. "**Open the TARDIS immediately!**"

Sophie reached for the pocket of her jeans, and felt around for the TARDIS key. For a device used to open a space and time ship that was bigger on the inside than it appeared to be from the outside, the key was remarkably mundane. A standard Yale key, small and silver. It was on a black string, and Sophie could have worn it as a necklace, but she had an aversion to wearing stuff around her neck, and so preferred to keep it tucked in her pocket. The Doctor had presented her with a key in Siena, almost as an afterthought amidst all the chaos.

As she stepped towards the TARDIS and prepared to insert the key into the lock, she reconsidered. The Daleks were the Doctor's greatest enemies; there was no way he would even consider letting them have access to her ship. Then again, the Doctor wasn't there, and Raflog's life depended on her.

She slid the key into the lock, half expecting some Time Lord security system to kick into action and keep her out. Instead, the key fit perfectly, as it always did. She turned the key in the lock, and head the pins click back.

The Daleks made a noise, almost a squeak, of what she could only guess was glee at their impending victory.

Suddenly, she felt something brush past her, and saw one of the tired-looking men lift something above his head and bring it crashing down on the Dalek's eyestalk. The Dalek gave a cry of what she supposed was pain or shock, and the second man grabbed Sophie and almost shoulder-barged her into the TARDIS.

The Dalek's eyestalk went dark, and Sophie saw it spinning around, screaming over and over "**My vision is impaired!**"

The other Dalek took aim and fired at the man, screeching its now-familiar battle cry of "**Exterminate!**", only to miss as he followed his compatriot and Sophie into the TARDIS. Inside, the other man was staring in wonder at the interior of the TARDIS, and it took Sophie a moment to recover and realise what was going on. As the second man stepped inside, his place, narrow face flushed, his chest heaving, she ran behind him and slammed the door shut as the second Dalek tried to fire again.

She half expected the facsimile wood doors to be turned to splinters by the Daleks' weapons, but, to her surprise, they held firm; only through the windows inset at the top could she see the light cast off by the blast.

The Daleks were both screeching "**Exterminate!**" now, and firing indiscriminately at the TARDIS door.

"Oh my God, they're going to get in!" she said, turning back to the men, both of whom were still staring at the grand, cavernous interior of the console room.

Sophie understood their shock; she was still surprised by the enormity of the chamber, with its high, vaulted ceilings and its walls of burnished orange and gold inset with roundels of various sizes and in varying patterns. The console that dominated the centre of the room, on a raised tier above a small sitting area, was, mostly, dark, perhaps running under some kind of energy-saving mode, but the time rotor that rose as a pillar from the centre of it still glowed blue, and the gentle hum of the TARDIS engines, though diminished, continued unabated in the background.

"What is this place?" the first man said, staring about in wonder.

"Does that matter?" Sophie hissed, "The Daleks are trying to get in!"

"They can't," the second man said, absently. "Extrapolator shielding."

"Extrapo-whatter what?" Sophie asked, confused.

As the Daleks redoubled their attack on the TARDIS doors, the two men turned to face Sophie. Something about the way they moved, robotically, almost in unison, deeply unnerved her.

"You must know," one of them said.

"Surely," the second added.

"Know what?" Sophie asked, jumping as a new round of Dalek weapons fire sounded.

"That this thing has extrapolator shielding," the first said. "The Managers won't be able to get through it, no matter how hard they try. That's why they were getting us to work on it."

"Who are you?" Sophie asked.

"Who are _you_?" the second man responded, and Sophie, as the two men stared at her, felt like she was an particularly unusual-looking bug beneath a magnifying glass, being watched closely by two little boys crouching in the dirt.

"I'm One," the first man said, "and he's Two."

"Those aren't names," Sophie said. Under normal circumstances, she would have been embarrassed by her rudeness, but she thought that she could be forgiven considering the presence of the Daleks a few metres away from the TARDIS doors.

"I've never heard of anyone called Sophie," Two said, almost childishly.

"I'm sorry," Sophie said, biting out the apology. "I didn't mean it like that, but there are two Daleks, Managers, _whatever_, trying to bash down the doors, and I have no idea what's going on!"

"But this box is yours, isn't it?" Two asked.

"How is it bigger on the inside?" One pressed.

Sophie shook her head. She squeezed the TARDIS key in her hand, thankful she'd pulled it from the lock, and tucked it back into the pocket of her jeans. "The TARDIS isn't mine. It belongs to the Doctor, he's a friend of mine. Why are you here? Where is here? And why did you do that?"

"What does it do?" Two asked, looking around.

"Is it dimensionally transcendent?" One added.

"Shut up!" Sophie demanded, shouting over their overlapping questions. "We've got bigger things to worry about! The Daleks are trying to get inside, and if they find a way in, we're all screwed. Meanwhile, a friend of mine is trapped out there, with a Dalek ready to kill him."

One and Two fell silent.

Sophie took a deep breath, her mind racing. She was desperately trying to figure out what to do as she brushed past the two men, racing up the ramp towards the console. At her touch, the console came to life, its darkened switches brightening. She couldn't help but feel welcomed; the TARDIS, it seemed, had decided to acknowledge her the same way it acknowledged the Doctor.

She couldn't think what to do. She'd never really paid attention when the Doctor had input coordinates, and even if she had, she realised, she had no idea where she wanted to go, regardless. Despite the fact that the TARDIS supposedly translated all languages for her, she'd never been able to read the swirling, clock-like text of the Doctor's long-dead people, the Time Lords.

Sophie studied the console, all six sides crammed with switches and gauges and various pieces of bric-a-brac, including a typewriter without any letters on the keys, a telephone, a couple of bicycle pumps and, most distressingly, a small metal mallet attached to a length string, tried to the console. She realised that she didn't even know where to start, so she reached for the scanner scream, and swivelled it around towards her.

One and Two had joined her at the console, now, and were staring at it in wonder. "What's this?" One asked, reaching for one of the bicycle pumps.

"Don't!" Sophie roared. "Don't… don't touch that."

"Why not?" Two asked.

"Because if you press the wrong button, flip the wrong switch, you could tear a hole in the fabric of the universe!" Sophie told them, and she came up short, unable to believe that she'd just said that. She was even starting to sound like the Doctor. She was about to go in when she heard something.

Rather, sounds she _had_ been hearing suddenly stopped. The weapons of the Daleks outside had stopped their incessant chatter, the high-pitched whine of the blasts they'd been firing at the TARDIS dying away.

"What are they doing?" One asked, turning towards the TARDIS doors, giving voice to their shared thoughts.

"I don't know," Sophie said, her mouth suddenly dry. She turned back to the console, trying to think. What would the Doctor have done?

Before she could do anything, however, the monitor activated. Sophie jumped, as an image resolved onto the screen. A pair of Daleks stood in the foreground, with two more flanking them. Sandwiched in between the first two, Sophie saw with a shock, was Raflog.

The man looked exhausted, gaunt, as though the life had been sucked from him. Sophie's heart broke, and she wondered what the Daleks had done to him since they'd been separated.

The Dalek to Raflog's left, its casing as black as pitch, spoke "**You will exit the TARDIS or he will be exterminated!**"

Sophie swallowed. She was stuck.

* * *

><p>Jenna finally got back to the Security Section control room in the turbocannon factory, where she found Mulraney overseeing the removal of the bodies of workers he'd massacred down on the factory floor earlier in the day. The nominal head of Security Section in the factory, Mulraney was Jenna's commanding officer, though she thought, considering the fact that she'd discovered the colony beneath the old spaceport, that particular aspect of the status quo was about to change.<p>

Jenna was a slight woman, wearing the silver uniform of the Security Section, thought she had surrendered her rifle before she'd returned to the turbocannon factory, following the capture of the Doctor's ally and that traitorous bastard Raflog.

"The Managers are impressed," Mulraney said as she joined him, barely even looking at her. She guessed he was jealous, and she felt a pang of satisfaction.

"They told you that?" Jenna asked, slightly surprised by the notion.

Mulraney nearly snorted. "No, of course not. There's been increased chatter from the moon, and they've accessed your file."

Jenna blinked. "They've what?"

"Accessed your file," Mulraney repeated, and she saw that he was cracking a small smile. "They caught Raflog. I'm sure by now they've interrogated him. Maybe he let the Managers know something that you wouldn't want to get out."

Jenna narrowed her eyes. "What are you implying?"

Mulraney openly smirked now. "You should know by now, Jenna, that it's impossible to keep secrets from the Managers."

Her face fell. "What have you done?"

"Let's just say that the Managers weren't the only ones to access your file," Mulraney said, and turned from her, crossing to a console manned by a pair of junior officers.

Jenna's heart was pounding now. She wished she hadn't given away her weapon. She stepped up behind her, reaching towards his shoulder, saying "What the hell have you done, Mulraney?"

She grabbed him, spinning him around.

He reacted quickly, the palm of his hand lancing out and striking her across the cheek. She stumbled back for a moment, surprised. "Don't you dare touch me!" Mulraney roared, and every pair of eyes in the security centre turned towards the two of them. "Traitor!"

"Traitor?" Jenna echoed, unable to believe what she was hearing. "What the hell are you talking about? You know I'm not a traitor!"

Mulraney's eyes blazed, not with anger so much as… was that glee?

"How many people managed to get away when you led the raid on the colony, hmm, Jenna? How many valuable sources of information did you let slip through the cracks? Where is the Doctor? Where is the girl that helped him escape the factory?"

"You think I know?" Jenna asked, seeing red.

"Of course you do," Mulraney said. "Your partner was a traitor. According to you, he operated under your nose. Unless that wasn't really the case, Jenna. Perhaps Security Section had you under surveillance. Perhaps you've been suspected of subversive sympathies for quite some time."

Jenna punched him, then, hard across the face. He took a stumbling step backwards, and she went in to drive home her attack, elbowing him in the stomach before driving the palm of her hand into his nose. He fell, and even as she aimed a kick at his now-exposed groin, two pairs of strong hands grabbed her and pulled her away. She struggled, fought, as the two Security Section men separated her from Mulraney, whose nose was bleeding freely.

"Get her out of here!" Mulraney roared, as another Security Section man helped him to his feet. "Look her up! We'll let the Managers deal with her!"

"You bastard!" Jenna swore, as the men dragged her away. She fought them, but they had her in a vice grip. "I swear, I will kill you for this!"

Mulraney rolled his eyes as he turned away from her. He turned to one of the junior officers, who had watched the exchange with a bewildered expression. "Contact the Managers. Tell them we have another traitor."

Jenna heard this as the doors slid shut behind her. She struggled to break free from the men holding her, but she couldn't manage it. Her stomach dropped through the floor; she was terrified, and she knew she was likely going to die.


	40. Weapons of the Daleks: 5

**'Weapons of the Daleks'**

_Thirteen_

* * *

><p>"So what are we going to do?" Cassia pressed as she and Doctor returned to the hangar bay above the destroyed colony, where their shuttle had crashed earlier that day. The hangar was a wreck, strewn with debris, but there was more functioning equipment in that space than in the whole of the destroyed colony beneath it.<p>

"I need to contact my ship," the Doctor explained, as he picked his way over the wreckage towards what was left of the shuttle. "If my screwdriver hadn't been broken, I'd be able to send a signal pretty easily. Without it, I'm going to have rig something up."

"How?" Cassia asked, genuinely curious.

"How did you build a working spaceship from spare and stolen parts?" the Doctor asked her rhetorically, before going on "Hope, ingenuity and a great deal of luck."

He reached the wrecked shuttle, and pulled himself inside, going for the damaged consoles. There wasn't much in the way of communication technology, but he knew that there were scanners and similar devices; he'd be able to pull them apart and, with a lot of luck, and the same technical skill that had kept his TARDIS flying for over a millennia, put them together well enough to get a signal to the TARDIS, wherever she was.

Returning to Cassia with the detached consoles, he set them down on the hangar floor. Almost as though she was anticipating him, she'd retrieved a tool kit.

"Stole this from the maintenance guys at the turbocannon factory," Cassia told him as she handed him the kit.

"Excellent!" said the Doctor taking it from her with a smile.

He sat cross-legged on the floor, and Cassia bobbed down beside him, as he opened the tool kit and pulled out a small spanner. He sighed somewhat disappointedly, and said "Couldn't have hoped for something sonic. A probe, a lance… hell, even a pen."

Cassia was about to say something, when the Doctor shot her a smile, underlining his joke.

The Doctor set about disassembling the consoles, and setting the components to the side. A lot of them were damaged or burnt out, and these the Doctor threw away. Cassia watched him, but was clearly growing impatient. Finally, she could not hold back her frustration any longer.

"So once you contact your ship, what next? Do you have a crew aboard or something? How do you know the Daleks haven't destroyed it already?"

The Doctor considered for a moment. "No, no crew. It's just me and my companion, Sophie. The Daleks can't have destroyed the TARDIS; it's the last of its kind in existence, and they want that technology too badly to let it be destroyed. Even if they didn't, it's protected."

"Only the two of you on the ship?" Cassia asked, somewhat confused. "What kind of ship is it?"

The Doctor's expression grew wistful, if only for a moment, but he continued pulling apart the consoles and studying the components. "Oh, all kinds."

Cassia frowned at his not-quite-answer. "What do you and Sophie do, then?"

"We travel," the Doctor said, immediately, looking up from his work and fixing her with an intense gaze. "We travel the length and breadth of the universe, all of time and space."

Cassia blinked. "Why?"

"To see what there is to see," he told her, with the hint of a grin. He went back to his work. "A long time ago, I left my homeworld to see the stars and I never looked back. Now, my homeworld is gone, and all I have is the TARDIS and my friends, like Sophie. That ship is more than a ship; it is my home, my one link to the world I left behind. The world I lost."

Cassia thought of the burnt colony, of all the lives that would have been lost during the Dalek attack; Artraya, Vrin, countless others. "I'll help you get them back, Doctor," she swore, and she knew that, were their positions reversed, he would have promised her the same.

"I know you will," the Doctor said, and he briefly touched her hand. "Cassia, even if we succeed in mobilising the other colonies, the fight against the Daleks will be a long and bitter one."

"I know," Cassia said. "I'm not afraid, if that's what you're implying."

"No," the Doctor said, shaking his head, "I'm not saying that at all. What I am saying is that… well, I'd like you to consider coming with us."

"Huh?" Cassia asked, taken aback.

"In the TARDIS," the Doctor said. "I'd like you to think about joining Sophie and I in our travels."

Cassia said nothing for a moment, and the Doctor kept on with his work. Regardless, he watched her intently from the corner of his eyes; she looked confused, torn. He regretted extending the invitation so early. Perhaps, he thought, he should have waited until he'd actually gotten the TARDIS back, found Sophie.

His hearts jumped at the thought of his friend, at the mercy of the Daleks. They might have exterminated already, but something, and perhaps it was just hope, wishful thinking, told him that she was still alive. The Daleks would know that she was his companion; a simple scan of her body would reveal the chronon particles that saturated her bloodstream thanks to her travel in time and space, and since they more than likely already had the TARDIS, they'd put two and two together.

As long as they thought they could use her, either as a bargaining chip to use against him or as a way to access the TARDIS, they'd keep her alive.

"I can't," Cassia said, at length. "I can't leave the planet. I can't leave my people. Not while I can still help them fight against the Managers."

The Doctor nodded. "I know, Cassia. It will be dangerous, though."

"Is travelling with you all that safe?" Cassia asked, and the Doctor knew she was thinking of Sophie's capture.

"No," the Doctor admitted.

Cassia paused. "Why me?"

"Because I only take the best," the Doctor said. "You operated under the noses of the Security Section and the Daleks. You built a ship out of scraps and you piloted it into space. You're brave, resourceful and clever."

Cassia blushed. "Thank you, Doctor."

"Consider it, Cassia," the Doctor said with a small smile. "That's all I ask."

She nodded. "I will. At any rate, once we contact your ship, what do we do? What's next?"

The Doctor thought. "We try and activate the automatic systems. If I can get the TARDIS to rematerialise where I last landed her, in the factory, then it's a simple matter of getting back there."

"Wait," she said, shocked. "You want us to go _back into_ the factory? After all it took getting us out of there to begin with?"

"I'm sorry, Cassia, but it's the only way," the Doctor said.

She nodded, accepting that, before asking "Okay, so what do we do after that?"

"After the turbocannons have been assembled, what happens?" the Doctor asked.

"Why does that matter?"

"Just humour me, please," the Doctor said, and Cassia thought.

"They get shipped out," she said, and frowned. "I'm not sure to where. Usually, they're assembled, tested, then disassembled and moved on to wherever they end up."

"You don't know?" the Doctor asked.

Cassia shrugged. "No one does, as far as I can make out."

The Doctor nodded. "Okay, then. You mentioned testing?"

"Oh, right," Cassia said, nodding. "There's a firing range right next to the factory. Completely sealed off. They fire projectiles into space, and I'm guessing they calculate how far they'll go and how much damage they'll do when they get there."

The Doctor smiled. "Do you know if there's a cannon there now?"

Cassia frowned. "Yes, there should be. Why?"

"Because I think I just figured out how we're going to tip the balance of probable outcomes towards our favour," the Doctor said. Now, he was assembling a small device from the components of the consoles. He was using the undamaged segments of the control computers, mainly, and some parts from the consoles' own internal scanners.

"How's that?" Cassia asked.

The Doctor grinned. "You remember the zigurrat we saw on the moon? That's the Dalek's centre of operations, their base, their fortress. From there, they'd be able to swoop down across the planet whenever they wanted, and I doubt very much that there are weapons here that can reach them."

Comprehension dawned in Cassia's eyes. "You want to use the turbocannon on them."

"Exactly," the Doctor grinned. "Those cannons were meant to blast entire cities off of planets lightyears away. It should make short work a Dalek stronghold."

Cassia smiled. "That's brilliant!"

"Yes," the Doctor said, and his own smile diminished. "An unfortunate loss of life."

She was somewhat surprised at this. "But they're Daleks, aren't they? Don't you hate them?"

"Oh, yes," the Doctor admitted, "but if there was any other way, I wouldn't kill them. Cassia, life is always, always, preferable to death and destruction. Peace is always preferable to war. If I could, I would get them to leave Ford XVII and never come back, but that is not how the Daleks operate. It's not how they think. They'll keep forcing the workers on this planet to build weapons, endlessly, until there is nothing else here, until the entire world is bristling with them, and then they'll carve away sections of the planet's crust and replace them with engines."

Cassia's eyes widened. "What? Is that even possible?"

"Oh, yes," the Doctor nodded. "Once, on Earth, a long time ago, they tried the same thing. I managed to stop them then, but consider this; a planet covered in factories, endlessly producing weapons, capable of moving through the stars. A planet turned into one enormous weapon. Nothing in the universe could stand against it."

"Nothing aside from us," Cassia said, and the Doctor heard the resolve in her tone. "We can beat them, Doctor."

"We will try," the Doctor said, and he finally snapped one last component into place. "Now, all we need is a power source."

"Here," Cassia said, retrieving a small battery pack from the tool kit. "It won't last too long, but you should be able to get a signal out."

"It won't need to last," the Doctor assured her. "The TARDIS is smart. The second her telepathic circuits figure out that I'm looking for her, she'll respond as best she can."

With that, the Doctor took the battery from her, and connected it to the communications device he'd assembled. It hummed to life, and he bit his lip, hoping against hope that he'd get in touch with the TARDIS.

* * *

><p>"<strong>You will exit the TARDIS,<strong>" the lead Dalek repeated, "**or this human will be exterminated!**"

Sophie's heart had stopped, her throat had gone dry. She stared at the image on the scanner screen, four Daleks surrounding the weakened form of the man that had saved her life several times earlier in the day; Raflog shivered as three Dalek gunsticks were trained on him.

"We can't go out there!" One shouted from behind her. "They'll kill us!"

"We're safe in here," Two said, nodding, "they'll never get through the extrapolator shields."

"If we do nothing," Sophie spat, unimpressed by the two men, "Raflog dies."

"So what?" Two asked.

Sophie couldn't believe that two men who had just attacked the Daleks and ushered her into the TARDIS just moments ago were now so willing to leave Raflog to his fate. She realised that, a few months ago, she probably would have been, as well. The Doctor hadn't so much changed her as just deepened what she'd already know, how she'd already felt; whatever she might have done in the past, she knew now that there was no way she was going to leave him to his fate at the hands of the Daleks.

"**You will exit the TARDIS!**" the lead Dalek repeated, and the other three joined in with a repeated chorus of "**Exit! Exit!**"

One fired its weapon at the floor, the blast impacting near Raflog's feet. The old man pulled away from the blast, almost cowering, and Sophie realised that, in the brief time they'd been apart, the Daleks must have done something terrible to him.

In that moment, she made the decision to turn away from the console and the monitor, and return to the TARDIS doors.

"Where are you going?" One said, stepping in front of her. "You can't seriously be considering going out of there!"

"Get out of my way," Sophie said; her heart was racing now, knowing that with each second they wasted the Daleks were getting closer to firing on Raflog, killing him the way they'd killed Artraya and Vrin.

"No!" Two said, stepping behind her. "You can't! If you open that door, you don't know what the Managers will do!"

Sophie shoved Two in the shoulder, pushing him backwards slightly. "Stay away from me," she ordered, and sidestepped One. They moved to stop her again, but she was already at the doors. Her hands were on the handle when suddenly, impossibly, a telephone started to ring.

Sophie spun about, eyes wide.

"What's that?" Two asked.

"It's a phone box," Sophie said to herself. "Of course it has a phone!"

She dashed from the doors, up the ramp to the console, where she quickly found the telephone bolted to it. It was quite modern and sleek, though had a curled cord that attached it to the base. She'd never seen the Doctor use or operate it, but she had noticed it there, and it was certainly this device that was ringing now.

She lifted the receiver to her ear and said "Hello?"

"_Sophie?_" came the reply.

She almost cheered when she heard that voice, as almost as familiar to her by now as her voice. "Doctor! I can't believe it! Where are you?"

"_Where are you?_" he asked, obviously deeply surprised.

"I'm in the TARDIS," she said. "They got me, Doctor, the Managers. You were right, they're really the Daleks, and they had the TARDIS, just like Raflog said they would."

"_What happened?_" the Doctor asked. "_How did you get back aboard the TARDIS?_"

"They wanted me to open it for them," Sophie said.

"_Did you?_" the Doctor asked, his voice stern.

"Yes," she said, "but only because they threatened to kill Raflog if they didn't."

"_Raflog's still alive?_" Sophie heard someone else say, and she recognised the voice as Cassia's.

"Yes," Sophie said, glad that there was someone else happy to hear the news. "But not for much longer, unless I do something. Two of the Daleks', well, servants, I guess, attacked them and got me inside."

"_Are they with you now?_" the Doctor asked.

"Yes, they are," Sophie answered, as One and Two joined her at the console.

"Who is that?" one of them asked, but Sophie ignored him.

"_Do the Daleks still have Raflog?_" the Doctor asked, and Sophie told him that they did, quickly catching him up on their current situation. The Doctor considered for a moment. "_The Daleks won't be able to get aboard the TARDIS without destroying it, and I'm all but certain that they won't want to do that. It's too potentially valuable to them._"

"Okay," Sophie said, glancing at the scanner screen, "so what do I do?"

"_On the console, near the telephone,_" the Doctor said, "_can you see a sphere studded with blunted spikes?_"

Sophie glanced at the controls on the console, and then she found the apparatus in question. "Yeah, Doctor, I see it."

"_That controls the extrapolator shielding,_" the Doctor told her.

"What is extrapolator shielding?" Sophie asked. "One and Two, those two guys who got me away from the Daleks, knew about it, as well. The Daleks know about it, too."

"_Yes,_" the Doctor said, and he momentarily adopting that tone he used when remembering long-ago adventures. "_I expect they do. Apologise to One and Two for their unfortunate names for me, will you?_"

Sophie smiled at that.

"_I'll explain later about the extrapolator shields,_" the Doctor assured, her before going on. "_Spin that control clockwise. It'll extend the extrapolator shields around Raflog, and should keep the Daleks out. They'll only be able to function at that range for a few minutes at a time, but it should be long enough. Get to him, get him inside the TARDIS, and then you need to find and activate the fast return switch._"

"The fast return switch," Sophie repeated, making a note of it. "What's that?"

"_It'll take the TARDIS to the last place it materialised,_" the Doctor explained. "_You'll arrive in the turbocannon factory. Once you're there, wait for Cassia and I to join you._"

"But won't the Daleks just be able to teleport us back?" Sophie asked, remembering the sickly feeling of the transmat device that had swept her up from that cavern beneath the colony.

"_You'll need to disable their transmat circuits,_" the Doctor said.

"How am I meant to do that?" Sophie asked, horrified. She barely knew what a transmat was, let alone how to disable one.

"_Sophie,_" the Doctor said, his voice growing faint, the line, already shot through with static, getting weak. "_We're running out of time. I can't hear your end…_"

With that, in a burst of static, the call ended. Sophie swallowed, uncertain how to proceed. She needed to save Raflog, and she needed to do it as quickly as she could; now, apparently, she also had to disable the transmat circuits. She knew that she'd only get one chance at either. She took a deep breath, and turned on One and Two.

"Who was that?" One repeated.

"That was the Doctor," Sophie answered, "and before you say anything else, you have to understand that he is the only person on Ford XVII, and probably anywhere in the universe, that can help us now."

"What are we going to do, then?" Two asked.

Sophie quickly outlined the plan, and then asked about the transmat circuits. Two sucked in air through his teeth. "I can do that."

"What?" One exclaimed. "No! You can't!"

Two shrugged. "I have to. We said to each other that, if we could, we would use this box to bring down the Managers. Sophie's telling us that we can. If it costs my life… so what?"

One evidently couldn't believe what was happening.

"Guys," Sophie said, interrupting them before they could go on, "we can't waste any more time. I'm going to extend the shields, and then I'm going to run for the door. Two, if you want to head for the controls, go for it. I'll grab Raflog and bring him back. One, I could use some help with that."

One looked uncomfortable, but he nodded. "I'll help. You have to promise that you'll get us out of here, though."

Sophie swallowed. "I can try. That's all I'll promise."

Two moved into position besides the doors, and One went to join him as Sophie took hold of the control the Doctor had described to her. She hoped against hope that was she was planning would work, and she felt something in the back of her mind, almost like an encouraging whisper, which had certainly not originated from within her.

She realised with a start that it was the TARDIS, operating through its telepathic circuits. "Thank you," she whispered, and she spun the control clockwise.

On the scanner screen, she saw the Daleks somewhat impossibly driven back from Raflog, who saw what was happening and barely reacted. The armour-encased murderers were being pushed back and were screaming in their mechanical voices; their weapons fired, but the beams of energy barely left the barrels of their gunsticks before dying away.

Sophie almost laughed at the sight, but she buried that absurd impulse, and shouted to the men "Go!"

One and Two bounded from the TARDIS, and Sophie bolted towards them. She was through the doors, and suddenly surrounded by the voices of the Daleks once more. Eyestalks tracked her movements, and she reached Raflog just as One did. The man barely reacted as they took his arms and began to guide him back towards the TARDIS.

Two had run to the computer terminal situated near the door; the Daleks were now focusing their efforts on him, but their weapons still weren't functioning properly. Regardless, Sophie saw, the beams were getting further and further from the gunsticks with each volley. The extrapolator shielding was beginning to weaken.

They'd reached the TARDIS, and Sophie opened the doors. One helped Raflog inside. Sophie spun towards Two, who was still tapping at the controls.

"Come on!" she shouted, seeing the Daleks' blasts getting ever closer to him.

One appeared beside her, and nudged her out of the way. The console Two was working at suddenly exploded in a cascade of sparks, and he looked about joyfully before running back towards the TARDIS doors. One ran out to help him back, but even as he stepped over the threshold a Dalek blast scraped past Two's shoulder.

Sophie's eyes widened in horror as Two struck the decking, screaming in pain. One reached his friend and took hold of the downed man's shirt collar, dragging him back towards the TARDIS. It was slow going, and the Daleks' weaponsfire was now only centimetres away from them.

Sophie was about to go and help them when One pulled Two to his feet, and shoved him towards the TARDIS doors. Sophie had no choice but to catch him as he tumbled towards her, and pull him inside the ship. Their momentum caused the doors to close, and just as they swung shut Sophie saw a blast catch One full in the back.

He screamed, and Sophie shut her eyes as the light of the blast lit up the windows in the TARDIS door.

She swallowed, and helped lay Two on the TARDIS floor. He was groaning, evidently in pain, and his clothes were singed, smoke rising from their blackened edges.

"Raflog," she said, "help me!"

Raflog, who was standing not far from the door, turned to her. He barely seemed to acknowledge his own name. His eyes were distant, haunted. He said nothing.

"What the hell did they do to you?" Sophie asked, barely holding back tears.

"I did it," Two groaned weakly. "I sent a feedback pulse through the entire transmat system. It's completely offline."

Sophie's joy at that news was tempered by the cost of the achievement. The extrapolator shielding must have fallen back to the TARDIS' immediate area; the Daleks had resumed their constant bombardment now.

Two reached out, and with surprising strength grasped Sophie's arm, whispering "Is One okay?"

Sophie smiled weakly. "He's fine, Two. Just take it easy, all right?"

Two nodded, and his eyes closed. Sophie's heart stopped for a moment, thinking that he'd died, but he was still breathing, even if his breaths were ragged and shallow.

Sophie stood, leaving him for a moment, and crossed to Raflog. The old man was still staring, dead-eyed and voiceless, at the interior of the TARDIS.

"Come with me," she said, quietly, and took him to the sitting area under the console tier. Helping him to sit in the Doctor's old armchair, she turned back to Two. She knew little to nothing about treating anything or than scrapes or cuts. Indeed, aside from knowing how to properly wrap and suspend a snakebite, pretty much common knowledge for an Australian schoolkid in the nineties, who had grown up watching Steve Irwin, she was pretty much useless when it came to illness or injury.

She could leave him for a moment; even if he was grey and emaciated, he was much larger than her slight form. Heading for the ramp, she ran to the console and quickly began searching it for the quick return switch.

"God, Doctor," she said under her breath, frustration mixing with sadness and fear, "you couldn't have been more specific could you?"

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a button labelled, quite conspicuously, in English. "Fast Return Switch" had been etched onto the console in felt-tipped pen above a big, red control. "Oh, real smooth," she said.

She slapped the button, and the TARDIS came to life around her. The engines began to sing, and the central column began to move up and down, the time rotor glowing a brilliant blue. She laughed with relief as the TARDIS disappeared; on the scanner screen, the Daleks, opening fire over and over again, faded away.


	41. Weapons of the Daleks: 6

'**Weapons of the Daleks'**

_Fourteen_

* * *

><p>Jenna's captors had hustled her from the command centre down a corridor towards the same bank of elevators that serviced the entire turbocannon factory. One of them was still offline, destroyed by the Doctor, but the rest still functioned perfectly.<p>

"So which of you is going to kill me?" she asked the two men.

One of them shot her a look; the other seemed not to care.

"What, has Mulraney told you not to talk to me?" she asked. "Afraid you'll catch subversion of it you speak to me?"

They still didn't answer, and then it dawned on her.

"You don't want to give him ammunition, do you?" she said as the door to the waiting elevator car opened. "You don't want him to be able to say that you were conspiring with me? He's a real bastard, isn't he?"

With their weapons to her back, they nudged her inside. One took up position behind her, while another holstered his pistol and stood at the elevator controls. He activated in them, and in the brief moment of unease caused by the car's sudden acceleration, Jenna saw her chance.

She lunged, without hesitation, for his pistol, succeeding in ripping it from its holster. In the same motion, she turned, and squeezed the trigger.

The other guard was killed with a shot to his neck.

He collapsed to his knees, but as Jenna turned the disarmed man was already punching; a blow struck her in the arm, spinning her around, while another struck her shoulder and then her cheek.

She felt her teeth scrape against the side of her mouth. She tasted blood, but ignored it; she kicked out, and hit the man's shin.

He gave a cry, and began to fall; before he hit the ground, he was dead, a pair of shot's from Jenna's stolen pistol hitting him in the chest. With a quick moment to catch her breath, she hit the emergency stop on the elevator's control panel, and it came to a screeching halt. The doors sprang open automatically, revealing that she was wedged halfway between one floor and another.

She glanced up at the small security camera that had watched the entire altercation; already, she knew, alarms were sounding throughout the factory, Security Section men sent to capture and, most certainly, kill her. Jenna didn't care.

Lifting her pistol, she fired another shot, destroying the camera.

She got to the floor, and slowly worked her way through the gap between one floor and the other.

Dropping to the floor, she stood, and realised that she was standing in the exact same lobby where the Doctor and Sophie had escaped from her earlier, with the help of Raflog. In the distance, she heard a strange noise, a wheezing, scraping grind of a sound. With her pistol in hand, she went to investigate.

She knew that Security Section would be on top of her within minutes, but she also knew how closely the factory floor was being watched; her best option was to try and escape across the connecting bridge, then fight her way out of the factory. She had no idea what she'd do after that.

She headed down the corridor, and then she noticed it. A tall, familiar blue box. She'd seen it earlier that day, when the Managers had tracked down the Doctor's ship and had it transmatted up to their base on the moon.

She swallowed as she saw it. How could it have gotten back here?

She went to the door, pressed her hand against it, and felt it give way beneath her touch. She had no idea what she was going to find, but she could hear voices coming down the corridor; Security Section men, she was sure, armed and hunting for her.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open.

* * *

><p>The Doctor and Cassia were huddled over the small communications device he'd managed to put together, trying to get it functioning again.<p>

"It's been twenty minutes," Cassia told the Doctor. "Maybe they've already saved Raflog?"

"Maybe," the Doctor said, leaving unspoken the other alternative; that Sophie had tried and failed, and that she, her new allies and Raflog had been killed. The Doctor continued to work on the device, and a few moments later, it finally hummed to life again.

From the makeshift speaker grill, which had originally been a speaker from a damaged comm. unit in the hangar, the Doctor heard the sounds of the TARDIS engines dying away.

"Sophie!" he shouted, and a few seconds past before he heard the rustle of the phone's receiver being picked up.

"_Doctor!_" she cried, evidently overjoyed to hear from him again. "_We did it, Doctor! We got Raflog and the TARDIS just landed again._"

The Doctor grinned, as did Cassia. "Is Raflog okay?" she asked.

"_He's alive,_" was all Sophie said, giving the Doctor pause. Still, he didn't have time for further clarification. Before he could go on, though, Sophie continued "_One didn't make it, and Two's in a bad way._"

The Doctor bowed his head, saddened by that news. "I'm sorry to hear that, Sophie. Look, get him to the TARDIS' sickbay if you can. It's just down the corridor from the console room."

"_I know where it is,_" Sophie told him. "_What happens now?_"

The Doctor paused, wondering how best to tell her the rest of his plan. "Cassia and I are going to try and reach you as soon as we can," he said, "but it might take some time."

"_It won't be long before Security Section finds me here, Doctor,_" Sophie warned.

"They shouldn't be able to get in," the Doctor promised her.

Even as he spoke, though, he heard the TARDIS doors open, heard Sophie say something and then the line went silent.

* * *

><p>"What the hell are you doing in here?" Sophie barked as she saw Jenna enter the TARDIS.<p>

She dropped the receiver, unable to believe what she was seeing; Jenna had held a gun to her twice already that day, had pursued her, the Doctor, Raflog and Cassia relentlessly and, Sophie thought, had been single-handedly responsible for bringing the Daleks down upon the colony.

Jenna was looking around in wonder, unable to believe the size of the TARDIS, but as soon as she heard Sophie's voice she whipped around, and aimed a pistol directly at her.

"You!" she spat. "What is this place?"

Sophie swallowed, uncertain what she should do; Jenna could kill her at any minute and she knew that the woman wouldn't hesitate to do so. Finally, she decided, it was better to buy time, to keep her talking, until Sophie could come up with another plan.

"It's the TARDIS," Sophie said, simply, doing her best to maintain a poker face.

Jenna's eyes narrowed. "What's it doing back here? I saw the Managers transmat it up to their base on the moon."

Sophie's expression didn't change, but she was surprised to learn that she'd just been on Ford XVII's moon, even if for a short time. She said nothing, and Jenna stepped over Two's prone form; the poor man's chest was still rising and falling, but even from this distance, Sophie could tell that he wasn't going to last much longer.

Jenna, her weapon still trained on Sophie, made her way up the ramp towards the console, and Sophie knew that she would have a brief moment when the console would separate the two of them; just long enough to try and affect an escape. Where would she go, though? Raflog was down below, Two was wounded and dying, and she was all but certain that the Doctor wouldn't have any weapons aboard the TARDIS.

Jenna had reached the top of the ramp and was beginning to move around the console towards Sophie. She sprung into action, running in the opposite direction from Jenna; the Security Section officer fired, but her shot missed Sophie, blowing out one of the roundels in the TARDIS wall.

With a hiss, smoke began to belch into the air. There was far more of it than Sophie would have thought; it was getting hard to see, she realised, and even harder to breath.

Coughing, she went for the ramp, and Jenna turned, firing again. Her shot, this time, destroyed the rarely-used wall-mounted scanner screen, which took up the entirety of the largest of the roundels.

She ran to follow Sophie, as the cloud of smoke, which Sophie guessed was actually coolant that had vapourised upon contact with the atmosphere, grew thicker, obscuring much of the console room. Sophie reached the ramp, and she was running down to the lower level; Jenna was close behind.

Sophie thought to get to Raflog, to usher him out of the console room, but Jenna tackled her from behind, knocking her to the floor.

Giving out a cry of pain, she looked around, trying to see where Jenna had gone, but the smoke was too thick. It was getting harder to breathe, her lungs aching and burning. Suddenly, Jenna reared up from the smoke, gun in hand, aiming for Sophie…

And then she gave a soft cry, and the weapon fell from her fingers.

She fell in a crumpled heap to the decking, bleeding profusely from a head wound. Raflog stood over her, one of the Doctor's wrenches in hand.

"Raflog!" Sophie said, surprised, and almost immediately had to double over, coughing.

The old man stepped over Jenna, dropping the wrench in favour of her discarded pistol, and helped Sophie to her feet. The smoke was now settling, drifting towards the floor, and she found it much easier to breathe, even though it was still difficult to see.

"It's good to have you back," she said eventually, clearing her throat. "What did the Daleks do to you?"

Raflog shifted uncomfortably, and when he spoke it was little more than a hoarse whisper. "They reached into my brain. I don't know how."

Sophie froze, hearing the pain in his words. "Did it hurt?"

"Yes," was all he said, clearly uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry," was all she could say, but Raflog shrugged and lifted the pistol he'd taken from Jenna, pointing it at her prone form.

"No!" Sophie shouted before he fired.

"She wouldn't hesitate if our positions were reversed," Raflog said, keeping the pistol level. "Make no mistake about that."

"Maybe not," Sophie said, as the last of the smoke was cleared away by the TARDIS' atmosphere scrubbers, "but the Doctor wouldn't want us to kill her, and she could still be useful."

Raflog lowered his weapon. "Fine. I'll fine something to restrain her."

"The Doctor must have some rope or something lying around here somewhere," Sophie said. She turned, and saw Two trying to rise, fighting his injuries.

She rushed to his side, and helped him get to his feet. "I've got you," she told him.

"Where's One?" he said, obviously fighting his way through bone-deep agony.

She swallowed. "He didn't make it."

Two's knees seemed to weaken, but Sophie caught him before he could fall.

"Come on," she told him, and slowly they made their way towards the sickbay. From the console room, they slipped into a hexagonal corridor, lined with roundels in much the way the console room was, glowing with the same intrinsic light that permeated the rest of the ship. It didn't take long to find the TARDIS sickbay; the door opened for Sophie as she helped Two inside.

Unlike the burnished orange and gold of the console room and the corridor, and the rest of the TARDIS that Sophie had seen, the chamber was stark, sterile white, with six walls. The roundels here were all monitors and screens, and the room was focused around a flat bed/chair, kind of like a white-upholstered dentist's chair. Sophie helped Two lie down, and almost immediately all the screens came to life. Slowly the lights began to dim, and Two fell unconscious almost immediately.

Sophie decided to leave him for the moment, thinking that the TARDIS would probably take care of him, and made her way back to the console room.

"I found handcuffs," Raflog explained as she entered, and found Jenna slumped, unconscious, on the Doctor's armchair.

Sophie grinned, despite the horror of their situation. "Good one, Doctor."

* * *

><p>The Doctor and Cassia were preparing to return to the colony, and from there head to the turbocannon factory. Cassia had armed herself, but the Doctor had begged off, preferring to remain, as ever, unarmed. They'd abandoned the communications device, and were ready to return to the destroyed colony when three figures emerged from the tunnel before them, dressed in ragged, though functional, travelling clothes and armed with rifles much like those that Jenna and Raflog had wielded when they'd first captured Sophie and the Doctor.<p>

The Doctor threw up his hands as they stepped forwards, their faces obscured by masks, but Cassia grinned.

"Don't worry, Doctor, they're on our side," she said, and the first of the three removed his mask.

He was a tall man, who would have been handsome were his face not so deeply creased with worry lines and his eyes not so haunted by what he'd no doubt seen down in the colony. He offered Cassia a weak smile, but the gaze he turned on the Doctor was steely.

"Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor," he answered immediately, no longer willing to waste time arguing with brusque members of the Ford XVII's resistance. He had a crushing feeling that Sophie was in great danger, and he didn't want to waste any more time getting back to her or the TARDIS. "If you'll excuse us, Cassia and I were just leaving."

"You're not going anywhere," said one of the masked people, a woman, judging by her voice. She, too, removed her mask as she lifted her rifle to point at the Doctor's chest. She was middle-aged, short and slightly round, but she had a tough jaw, marked with a scar, and her grey eyes underscored her statement.

"Taro," Cassia said, stepping between the Doctor and the gentleman, and placing the palm of her hand on the top of the woman's rifle, "he's helping us. I promise."

The man, Taro, examined the Doctor. The woman, however, didn't lower her weapon. "Helping us? The way the people down in the colony were 'helped'? How did the two of you survive?"

Cassia quickly explained what had happened, and briefly outlined how she'd met the Doctor to begin with. By the time she'd finished her explanation, their overall demeanour had relaxed, but all three of them were standoffish. Finally, Cassia introduced the three of them to the Doctor. The man, the leader, was Taro; the middle-aged woman was Kami; the third was a taller, gaunt-faced young man, named Fixxa.

The Doctor shook their hands, though none of them seemed particularly friendly. "So what is it that you do, Doctor?" Kami asked, shouldering Taro aside.

He blinked, unsure how to answer. Cassia stepped in for him. "He's a traveller, mainly, but he's an expert at this kind of thing."

"At what kind of thing?" Fixxa asked, his voice strangely accented.

"Revolutions," Cassia said, and the fire in her voice slightly unnerved the Doctor.

"Really?" Taro asked, looking at the Doctor. "Kami, Fixxa and I are terrorists. No two ways about it."

The Doctor swallowed, somewhat uncomfortable. "I want to try and end this with as little bloodshed as possible."

Cassia wheeled about, eyes wide. "You what? After what the Daleks did down there? To Artraya and Vrin and everyone else? What they almost did to Sophie? What they've done to Raflog?"

"Cassia," the Doctor began, but Taro interrupted him.

"I'm sorry," he said, "Daleks?"

Cassia quickly caught him up on what the Doctor had told her about the Daleks, and their plan for infiltrating the turbocannon factory, and using the weapons their against the Daleks' moonbase.

Taro seemed excited, but Kami looked uncertain. Fixxa remained impassive.

"And this ship of yours," Kami said to the Doctor, "you can use it to contact the rest of the movement? All the colonies, all the freelancers like us? All the workers?"

The Doctor nodded. "I think so, yes."

"And then what do you do?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I travel on. I'm not supposed to get involved in events like this. I'm supposed to let history run its course, but here, right now, I can't, because history has already been disrupted. The Daleks have put it off course, and I have got to put it right."

"You're going to start a war and then leave us to fight it," Kami said, unimpressed. "I don't mind fighting, Doctor. Me and Taro and Fixxa have done it all our lives. So has Cassia, here, in a different way, but there are millions of workers on this planet, just like all them you got killed in the colony, and if we start this war, a lot of them are going to die."

The Doctor heard Raflog's arguments echoed in her sentiments, and all he could do was tell her the truth. "Yes, a lot of people will die, but if we, if you, the people of this planet, don't stop the Daleks here, they will use the fruits of your labours to carve destruction across the stars. Please, please… help me."

Kami looked to Taro.

"I don't know about you, Kami," Taro told her, "but since the last time I checked I was still in charge of this squad. I'm going. You can come or you can stay, but I think it's worth a shot."

"So do I," Fixxa said, nodding.

Kami finally nodded. "Fine."

The Doctor grinned. "Fantastic!"

Cassia took the lead as they traced their path back to the turbocannon factory. They'd descended, first, back into the colony, before returning to street level, and from the ruined fuel silos they'd gone through the decaying industrial sprawl before getting back to the entrance of the sewers. They seemed to move a lot faster than they had earlier, and the Doctor thought that that had a lot to do with the almost military precision of Kami, Taro and Fixxa.

As they travelled, he'd learnt more about them; they were the last survivors of a squad that had been gathered together to fight the Managers and Security Section wherever they could. They bombed factories, stole supplies; they'd been sent to the destroyed colony by a few survivors that had escaped through the tunnels that had collapsed. Their presence made him feel incredibly uncomfortable, but they would, undoubtedly, be useful in the fight against Security Section and their Dalek overlords.

They'd reached the sewers, and the Doctor was the last into their dark, wretched confines; further down, he could see, were a few light sources.

"Guards," Cassia told him. "They must have followed us out of here."

"Leave them to us," Taro said, as Kami and Fixxa prepared their weapons. The three of them dashed ahead before the Doctor could protest, and echoing back down the tunnel he heard the rapport of gunshots.

He sighed inwardly, and even though he knew that those deaths had, perhaps, been unavoidable, each them still weighed heavily on him. Worse, it was only just starting.


	42. Weapons of the Daleks: 7

'**Weapons of the Daleks'**

_Fifteen_

* * *

><p>The Managers descended from their shuttlecraft, six of them. Mulraney could barely restrain himself from shivering; Jenna had escaped just moments before the Managers had announced that they were on approach for the factory, and now here he was, stood before the Manager encased in black, without a prisoner and without any clue how to proceed.<p>

"Where is the traitor?" the lead Manager demanded as it reached Mulraney, who stood alone on the landing pad. The rest of his men were already scouring the factory for any sign of Jenna. Another of the Managers split off from the main group, and even though Mulraney wanted to see what it was doing he dared not take his eyes from the leader.

"She…" he took a moment to compose himself. Unbidden, thoughts of what the Managers were capable of came to mind. "She escaped, sir."

The Manager's eyestalk seemed to flare.

Immediately, the four Managers that remained in position behind it began to fan out, heading for the entrances to the factory. Mulraney turned this way and that, not wanting them out of his sight for even a moment.

The Manager that had split off now turned back to the leader. "**The TARDIS is here!**" it announced.

The leader's eyestalk looked Mulraney up and down. "**You will return to the security centre. Other units will be taking up positions across the planet. Keep your workers in line.**"

"Where are they going?" Mulraney asked, gesturing towards the four retreating Manager.

"**To find the Doctor.**"

"The Doctor?" Mulraney asked. "He wouldn't have come back here, surely."

"**If the TARDIS is here,**" the Manager told him, "**then the Doctor will be here soon enough**." It sped towards its fellows, completely ignoring Mulraney, and the Manager that had split off from the group went to follow it.

In their chilling, screeching voices, they chorused as one "**Exterminate the Doctor!**" over and over.

* * *

><p>The Doctor could scarcely stand to look at the Security Section men that Kami, Fixxa and Taro had so easily dispatched; he was the last through the crawlspace into the bathroom that he, Sophie, Raflog and Cassia had escaped the factory through. As he climbed from the stinking vent into the somewhat filthy bathroom, he saw that the three freelancers had taken down some more Security Section men.<p>

This time, they hadn't used sidearms. Three silver-uniformed men had had their throats slit ear to ear. Cassia looked deeply discomforted, and the Doctor was thankful for that. He knew that the second one became to inured to death was the second one could kill easily and without compunction, and he hated to see Cassia slip down that particular path.

Without thinking, he reached out to touch her elbow.

"Well, Doctor," Kami said, breaking into his reverie. "Where to from here?"

The Doctor cast another glance at the bodies strewn through the chamber. "We need to get from the factory floor up to the TARDIS. It won't be too hard, and if you don't mind, refrain from killing anyone else."

Kami's face fell; evidently, she'd be exhilarated by the costly trek from the colony back to the factory. "It's kill or be killed, Doctor. I don't know what kind of world you're used to living in, but it's clearly not this one."

The Doctor blanched. "I've been to a lot of worlds and killing is never the right way to solve a problem."

"Sometimes it's the only way," Taro told him, and shouldered past him, heading for the door. From that door, they'd be at the corridor leading directly to the factory floor. From there, it was a simple matter of finding a working elevator and ascending to the same level the Doctor and Sophie had first arrived on.

Fixxa was already at the door, and with military precision, he gentle nudged it open and swept his pistol around in a wide arc. "Clear," he announced, holstering his pistol and retrieving the rifle strapped to his back.

He stepped out, followed by Taro, Cassia, the Doctor and, bringing up the rear, Kami; the Doctor didn't like having his back to the woman, but he realised he didn't have another option. The corridor was dark, and the sounds from the factory floor, which had been almost deafening earlier, had silenced.

"They must have shut down the factory," Taro said.

"Why?" Cassia asked.

"To deal with the security problems that allowed you to escape," Fixxa told them. "Look."

The Doctor leant around the figures before him, and in the light of the torch clipped to the barrel of Fixxa's rifle he saw rows upon rows of bodies, all of them filthy, all of them wearing torn, ragged clothes.

"Oh my God," Cassia choked, and she turned away, burying her face into the Doctor's chest. He hugged her tight, unable to take his eyes off the bodies.

"They massacred them," Taro said, voice tight. "All of them."

"Why?" Fixxa asked, and the Doctor thought the young man was crying.

"Because they helped me escape," the Doctor said, and his shoulders tightened. "That's what the Daleks do. They exterminate anything that stands in the way of their plans, anything that will prevent them from reaching their ultimate goal."

"That's why we have to stop them," he heard Cassia say, and he squeezed her tighter for a moment before letting go.

"Right you are, miss," Taro said, nodding. "This way."

They reached the factory floor a few moments later. Sure enough, though it was still bitingly cold and reeked of lubricants and toil, all the machinery had stopped working. Only a few drones drifted lazily above them. There was no sign of any Security Section men.

"Why is it so poorly guarded?" the Doctor asked.

"I don't think they ever expected you to come back here," Taro told him, and the group began to walk across the floor, towards the bank of elevators on the far side of the cavernous chamber.

"Maybe there's something distracting them," Cassia said. "If the TARDIS is back here, surely that would have pulled a few guards away from normal duties."

The Doctor frowned. "It shouldn't have. The TARDIS is protected by a perception filter. Unless someone was looking, specifically, for it, they'd never know it was there. Jenna and Raflog missed it when they first arrested Sophie and I."

They were about halfway across the floor when, suddenly, one of the elevators opened. Leading a squad of about eight Security Section men was a bronze-plated Dalek.

"Get down!" he cried, as the Dalek gave its war cry of "**Exterminate!**" and opened fire. Blasts flew from its gunstick, as the Security Section men behind it quickly formed a rank and hoisted their rifles. The Doctor took Cassia by the scruff of her neck and dragged her away, as Fixxa let loose a volley of shots. Kami and Taro fired once or twice, but quickly ducked beside the Doctor and Cassia, sheltering under a stilled conveyor belt on the nearest assembly line.

"Fixxa, get down!" Kami cried, but over the screeching of the Dalek's gun and the chatter of the rifle fire, he couldn't hear her.

The Doctor glimpsed one of the opposing Security Section men going down with a smoking crater in his chest as the assembly line above his head was raked with Dalek weapon fire. He held Cassia tight, feeling the energy of the blasts wash over them. Fixxa continued to fire, before the Dalek turned its attention to him.

With a single shot from its gun, the Dalek killed Fixxa. The young man was thrown backwards, and for a second the Doctor could see his skeleton illuminated against the glow of the blast. He fell to the factory floor, his body crumpled and smoking.

"No!" Kami cried, about to leap out and attack the Dalek.

"Don't!" the Doctor shouted, pulling her back. He could hear the Dalek getting closer. "You're using energy weapons, and that's a fully powered Dalek. Unless you've got a supply of bastic bullets somewhere, you'll never get through its shields, let alone the casing."

"Then what do you suggest, Doctor?" Taro spat, obviously unimpressed.

He considered, his mind racing. The Security Section men were still laying down suppressing fire as the Dalek was drawing nearer and nearer. "What do they build here?"

"Shell casings for the turbocannon slugs," Cassia said.

The Doctor's eyes widened. "They need to be strong enough to withstand superluminal velocities."

"Yes, and?" Taro demanded, clearly pushing for movement.

"And," the Doctor said, grinning, "there's no way the Dalek could risk firing a blast powerful enough to get through that kind of alloy. It'd be enough to bring down the entire chamber. Besides, I think I have a place."

"You _think_?" Kami repeated, disbelieving.

"We just need to find a piece large enough," the Doctor said, before turning to Kami, "if I can find a piece large enough, the alloy's crystalline matrix will be able to reflect a blast right back at the Dalek, enough to take down its shields."

Cassia lifted a finger, pointing at the assembly line facing them. "Over there!"

The Doctor followed her gaze, and saw a nearly completely assembled segment of slug casing. He turned to Kami and Taro. "The two of you need to cover us."

Kami looked as though she were about to argue, but Taro silenced her with a look. "On my mark, Doctor," he said, and lifted his rifle, aiming in the general direction of the firing Security Section men. A few seconds went by, and then Taro shouted "Mark!"

The Doctor wasted no time. He and Cassia ran at full pelt across the space separating the assembly lines. Kami and Taro opened fire, surprising the Dalek for a moment. Nevertheless, it turned its gunstick on the Doctor and Cassia. The Doctor shoved Cassia aside and leapt to the ground as it fired, the blast barely missing him.

A second later, before the Dalek had a chance to fire again, he was on his feet and had grabbed the segment of casing from the assembly line, holding it like a shield towards the Dalek. The Dalek fired, but the blast lanced from its gunstick, struck the shield and bounced back, striking the Dalek full on. The Dalek screeched, and the Doctor cried "Aim for the eyestalk!"

Kami and Taro did not need to be told twice; they opened fire. It was Cassia, though, that scored the fateful shot with the pistol she'd taken from the colony. The Dalek's eyestalk was blown clean off.

"**My vision is impaired!**" it cried, and began to fire willy-nilly. The Security Section men dived out of the way, but by the time the Dalek had extinguished its power reserves and they could get back to their feet, the Doctor and his friends had escaped.

* * *

><p>The elevator doors opened onto the lobby on the floor the TARDIS had landed on earlier that day. The Doctor, still carrying the segment of shell casing, half expected it to be crammed with Security Section man, but it was, to his amazement, quite devoid of guards.<p>

"Where are the guards?" Cassia asked, giving voice to his confusion.

"We don't have time to chat," Kami said, shouldering her way past Cassia and the Doctor and leading the way into the lobby. She began a quick jog down the corridor, the Doctor and Cassia following close behind. Taro brought up the rear, keeping a sharp eye out.

A few moments later, he saw the TARDIS, sitting exactly where it had that morning when he'd first arrived on Ford XVII. The Doctor's hearts began to beat faster, and he was filled with joy; the thought of seeing Sophie again, being aboard the TARDIS once more, was enough to make him smile ear-to-ear, despite the horror of the last day.

They were just a few steps from the TARDIS when the Doctor heard a high-pitched hum, and a screeching, horrendous voice cry out "Exterminate!"

A Dalek appeared from behind the TARDIS, and its gunstick twitched.

Kami died, screaming in agony. The Doctor came to a halt, and Cassia gave a cry as she slipped over, tripped up by the Doctor's sudden stop. The Dalek was about to fire at the Doctor, but he lifted the shell casing just in time; the blast bounced off it precariously, striking the ceiling. A cascade of sparks fell.

Before the Dalek could fire again, though, the TARDIS door flew open, and the Doctor saw Raflog leaning in the entryway, a pistol in hand. He fired at the Dalek, once, twice, again, just long enough for the Doctor to grab Cassia and throw her into the TARDIS past the old man.

The Dalek was about to fire at Raflog, but the old man ducked away. The Dalek's blast tore into the console room, and the Doctor heard it strike something. He could only hope it wasn't anything too important. He leapt towards the Dalek, swinging the casing.

It struck the Dalek's armour, forcing it back, and the Doctor yelled to Taro "Get inside the box!"

Taro looked stricken with fury, but he did as the Doctor told him. The Doctor swung the casing at the Dalek again and again, before finally, slipping into the TARDIS just as it fired again. This time, the blast struck the decking right behind the Doctor's feet, throwing him forward. Cassia and Taro helped him to his feet as Raflog slammed the door shut.

The Doctor, recovering, took in the console room. A few wisps of vaporised coolant still hung in the air; one roundel had been blown out, and the Dalek's first blast had damaged the connections near the top of the time rotor. The large scanner screen had been destroyed, and a woman that had tried to kill him was unconscious on his favourite chair. His home was a mess, but he barely noticed any of that; instead, his attention was drawn straight to the willow-thin young woman standing beside the console.

Her clothes were torn, and she looked exhausted, but in that moment he'd never seen anything so beautiful in all his life.

He ran, without a second thought, towards her, and pulled her into the biggest bear hug he could manage. She grinned, laughing and hugging him in return.

"I've missed you, Doctor," she said into his chest.

"I've missed you, too," the Doctor assured her, and released her. "You certainly know how to keep a place tidy."

She laughed, a weak laugh for a weak joke, but her relief at seeing him was genuine. "Picked up some new friends, too. So did you, I see."

The Doctor quickly introduced Taro, who had come up to the console with Raflog and Cassio, and gave the man his condolences for the loss of Kami and Fixxa. Outside, the Dalek had recovered enough to resume firing its weapon at the TARDIS. He called Cassia over to him.

The young girl smiled at Sophie, who quickly hugged her, before turning to the Doctor.

"I need you to record a message," he told her.

"A message?" Cassia asked.

"To spark the revolution," the Doctor said.

"But why me?" she asked, genuinely surprised.

"Because you're everything the people of this planet need to see," the Doctor said, smiling encouragingly. "You've got the face of a girl, the courage of a warrior and the soul of a leader. This planet needs to hear what you have to say. Just tell them everything that has happened today, everything that you've lost, everything that you hope to gain."

Cassia nodded, though she looked unsure. Raflog placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. The Doctor quickly set up the TARDIS' internal scanners to record a brief message, and told Cassia "Tell them to expect some fireworks to start off the show."

"What do you mean?" Cassia asked.

The Doctor smiled. "We're going to blow up the turbocannon factory."

"How?" Raflog asked.

"We'll figure that out later," Sophie interrupted. "First thing's first, we need to get this message done."

"I need to hack into the planet's communications net," the Doctor told Raflog, taking him and Taro aside as Sophie and Cassia set to work. "As soon as I'm in, the TARDIS can do the rest, but she's been damaged."

"My code would be useless," Raflog said. "They would have changed my credentials as soon as I escaped. Jenna's may still work."

The Doctor frowned. "Get her."

Cassia was still talking, Sophie standing nearby, as Raflog and Taro pulled Jenna towards the Doctor. "I need your help," was all he said.

Jenna ignored him.

"Please, Jenna," the Doctor said. "All I need is your access codes for the communications net. With that, I can start to bring down the Managers. This planet will be free."

"Free?" Jenna spat. "I'll never be free. They'll kill me. They'll kill everyone wearing this uniform."

The Doctor sighed, and though it pained him to make the offer, he said "I'll take you away from here. You do this, you give me the codes, and I'll get you out of here. I'll take you anywhere in the galaxy."

Jenna shot a look at Raflog. "He'll kill me."

"He won't," the Doctor said, stepping between him and her. "I won't let him. I give you my word."

Jenna stared him down for a moment, but she finally nodded and told him her access codes. As the Doctor turned to the console and input the data to the TARDIS' communications systems, Sophie and Cassia joined him. "Done," Sophie told him, with a smile.

"Excellent," the Doctor said, and he tapped a final command into the console, preparing to upload the file onto the net. The console gave a harsh squawk. "Damn! The Daleks are scrambling the communications net. The TARDIS can't get through."

"I know someone who can!" Sophie said, and she took Raflog with her. A few moments later, they returned with another man, his clothes scorched. He looked exhausted and pained. "This is Two," Sophie said, introducing him. "He helped me to escape the Daleks."

"Nice to meet you, Two," the Doctor said. "Do you think you can help me break the Daleks' scrambling?"

Two nodded, wincing as he did. Together, he and the Doctor managed to break onto the communications net. With a triumphant cry, the Doctor activated the TARDIS' communications systems, and the message Cassia and Sophie had recorded was sent out across the planet.

* * *

><p>The TARDIS' communications system had been upgraded, long ago, with that nanogene protocol. Given the right path of access, it could and would flood every radio channel, every cubic centimetre of airspace, with a message, repeated over and over again. Every radio, every transceiver, every speaker grille, would spread the word to all listening. Every screen would activate.<p>

On that day, the day the Doctor and Sophie arrived on Ford XVII, as the sun was setting over their part of the planet, the message that was sent from their big blue box was one of rebellion, one of armed uprising.

Every single person on the planet heard Cassia speak.

"_My name is Cassia. I have lived my entire life on this planet. I have lived every day in fear. No more. We have spent decades under the heel of the Security Section, and their overlords, the Managers. No more. Workers of Ford XVII, unite! The Managers are creatures called Daleks, and they are murderous, they are ruthless, and they must be stopped. Today, they have massacred the workers of the turbocannon factory. They have destroyed an entire colony of free workers. This bloodshed must not be allowed to continue. I call on every worker, every freelancer, to take up arms against the Security Section, against the Daleks. Soon, we will destroy their base on this planet's moon. Then we will destroy this factory, this monument to their oppression. When that happens, I ask you to rebel. To fight and keep on fighting until we are free!_"

All over the planet, this message was heard. All over the planet, the workers prepared for revolution.

* * *

><p>The security centre was a hive of activity; the Doctor and his allies had attacked and destroyed a Manager on the factory floor, and now reports were coming in that he'd successfully reached his ship. The black-armoured Manager had been growing increasingly restless, and Mulraney was convinced it was about to go berserk, killing them all.<p>

He was about to make sure he had a way to escape when the screens flickered, dimmed, and then, as one, showed an image of a face he recognised. The girl that had escaped with the Doctor and his friends! As Cassia announced her message, the colour drained from Mulraney's face. The Manager turned to him, eyestalk glowing, and he knew, in that moment, that he was going to die.

Before the Manager could fire, however, a deep, resounding hum filled the room; a wheezing, grinding noise as a blue box begin to materialise seemingly out of thin air. The Security Section men around stopped and stared, and even the Manager seemed awed. Mulraney fell to his knees, unable to believe what he was seeing as an unearthly breeze filled the air.

The box resolved into permanence, and the breeze died away; the box opened and a man in a long black coat stepped out. He looked Mulraney up and down, and then turned to the Dalek. It fired at him, but its blast stopped a few feet away from him, simply vanishing.

"Extrapolator shielding," the man said, grinning. "Swear by it."

"**Doctor!**" the Dalek roared.

"Bingo," the Doctor said, and he turned towards the TARDIS. "Come out, guys. The Dalek can't hurt you."

The Dalek tried though, firing again and again. The blasts stopped before the Doctor each time. Three men and three women joined the Doctor, impossibly stepping out of the relatively small box one after the other. Mulraney recognised most of them immediately; Jenna, Raflog, the Doctor's friend Sophie and the girl he'd just seen on screen, Cassia. Another man had a gun pressed to Jenna's back, while a second stood as close to the TARDIS as he could, clearly wounded and obviously terrified.

"See, this is the plan," the Doctor said, addressing the Dalek. "My friends and I are going to use the turbocannon on the firing range to destroy your base on the moon, which, if the TARDIS' scanners are right, is in exactly the right position of its orbit as we speak. Then we're going to overload the cannon's power generators, and destroy the factory itself."

The Dalek paused for a moment, as though considering something. Its eyestalk turned to each of them in turn, but finally settled on Sophie. "**We are prepared to come to an arrangement.**"

This brought the Doctor up short. "Excuse me? An arrangement?"

"**We will leave this planet,**" the Dalek told him, "**if you give us the female designated Sophie.**"

"What?" barked Sophie, unable to believe what she was hearing.

"Not a chance," the Doctor said. "And I mean it. I'm not handing her over to you."

"Doctor," Jenna said warningly, but the Doctor silenced her with a look.

"It's not happening," the Doctor said forcefully and turned back to the Dalek. "Do your worst, but you're not getting her."

"Why do they want me?" Sophie whispered, but the Doctor told her to be quiet, even as the Dalek reeled at the rejection of its plan.

The Dalek fired its weapon, screeching "**Exterminate!**"

"Oh, save it," the Doctor said. He turned to Mulraney. "We're going to destroy this place. Get your men out of here."

Mulraney didn't need telling twice. "Go!" he cried to the Security Section men, and though they hesitated at first, most of them filed out all but immediately. They'd evidently seen enough to know that they didn't have a hope, if even the Manager couldn't exterminate this interloper.

Mulraney scrambled to his feet, but before he could flee there was a quick scuffle. He turned, and saw Jenna knock the man with the gun to her back down, and whip around, scooping the gun up.

"No, don't!" the Doctor cried, but too late; Jenna had fired.

Mulraney died as a blast hit him in the neck, tearing apart his carotid and cauterising the wound immediately.

* * *

><p>The shot had disrupted the extrapolator shielding, however; the Dalek fired, and this time the blast didn't stop. It soared through the room, and hit Taro. He was killed instantly.<p>

The Dalek adjusted its gunstick, as the Doctor pulled Cassia and Sophie to the floor. Its next volley of blasts destroyed the computer banks and consoles that dominated the chamber, and Jenna, in the confusion, fled. Two was screaming with fear, as Raflog leapt upon the Dalek, smashing its casing with the butt of his pistol. After only a few blows, the pistol he held broke, and the Dalek got off a quick shot that hit him in the stomach. Though it was only a glancing shot, he cried with agony and fell, still, to the ground.

The Doctor, meanwhile, had crawled over to Taro's body, and took one of the grenade's clipped to the man's belt. Pulling the pin, the Doctor rolled it over to the Dalek as it spun around to track him with its gunstick.

Before it could fire, though, the grenade went off. The Doctor was monetarily blinded and deafened and by the explosion, which threw the Dalek back; something had been damaged, a support strut burnt through, for the ceiling on that side of the room began to collapse. The Dalek was trapped, crushed perhaps, beneath tonnes of broken circuitry and shattered metal.

The Doctor's chest was heaving as he went to see if Cassia and Sophie were all right. "We're fine," Sophie told him, waving him off, but Cassia slipped out from under his ministrations, rushing over to Raflog.

Sophie went to check on Two as the Doctor joined Cassia with Raflog. The man had taken shelter beside one of the few functioning consoles. "Don't die," Cassia was saying, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Not sure I have much of a choice," the old man said in response. His breathing was laboured, and blood flecked his lips. He turned to the Doctor, every moment weighted with pain, and said "This was Mulraney's console. You'll be able to access the turbocannon from here."

Sure enough, Raflog was correct; the console was functioning, and the Doctor had no problem accessing the turbocannon. The cannon was easy enough to power up, and the Doctor, on the screen before him, saw it activate. He input the target, and on the screen he saw the enormous cannon, the size of a skyscraper, move painstakingly slowly. At the doors to the chamber, the Doctor could hear Dalek weapons fire. They were trying to get in.

The turbocannon operated by accelerating a slug to superluminal velocities inside the barrel by way of electroproton accelerators. The slug would then tear through space until it struck its target; in this case, the moon that was slowly rising over that part of Ford XVII.

The Daleks were succeeding in burning their way through the doors; the Doctor knew he only had minutes now.

Finally, a beep issued from the console; the cannon was ready.

"Boom," the Doctor said quietly, and he hit the switch. The cannon let loose its slug, and the Doctor could feel the vibrations of that action shake the chamber itself. He didn't need to check the readouts to know that the slug had done its job; within a second the Dalek citadel on the planet's moon had been turned into a crater and so many free floating atoms. He pumped his fist in the air.

"You did it!" Cassia said, checking the screen beside his. "It's gone!"

"Now we just need to overload the power generators," the Doctor said, but he knew he was running out of time. The Daleks would get in at any moment.

"I'll do it," Raflog said, pulling himself to his feet. It was obviously quite an effort, and Cassia had to help him. "You get out of here, Doctor."

"You're coming with us, Raflog," Cassia said.

The old man shook his head. "Not this time, Cassia. I'm done."

"Raflog," the Doctor said, warningly, but the old man shot him a look. The Doctor stopped immediately. He knew that look. He'd seen it often enough. This was a man who knew he was dying, and who wanted to what was best in his final moments. The Doctor nodded once, respectfully, and despite Cassia's protests, he pulled her towards the TARDIS.

Sophie had already gotten Two inside, and the Doctor locked the doors behind him.

"Where's Raflog?" Sophie asked, from near the console. Two was still standing, shell shocked, beside her.

"He's not coming," the Doctor said, and Cassia screeched, fighting her way free of his arms and running to the doors. She couldn't opened them, no matter how hard she tried, and the Doctor went to the console. He quickly input coordinates, and threw down the lever. He closed his eyes as the TARDIS dematerialised, wishing Raflog a good death.

* * *

><p>The TARDIS melted away, leaving Raflog alone in the darkened, near-destroyed room. Smoke filled the air, and he was left alone with a buried Dalek and the bodies of Mulraney and Taro. He wondered, briefly, where his older partner had gotten to, but as the Daleks finally broke through the sealed shut doors, his thoughts rested entirely with Cassia.<p>

He knew that the war had only just started, that the factory that was to become his funeral pyre would be only the first salvo of the revolution to unseat the Daleks, but he was at peace with his sacrifice; he always would have been, after all. He had used Mulraney's console to feed so much power to the relays between the turbocannon on the testing range and its power generators that they were, even now, overheating. All he had to do was hit one more button, shutting down the redundant systems, and the factory would be destroyed.

Three Daleks glided into the chamber, around the rubble, and one came forward to announce "**Step back, or you will be exterminated!**"

Thoughts of the torture they'd put him through earlier filled him; thoughts of what they'd done to Vrin and Artraya, what they'd done to Taro and to One. He took one last breath, a breath that rattled through his broken body, and he pressed the button.

Jenna was running without thought, without reason. She'd heard the cannon being fired, and she knew that the whole place was about to go up. She'd reached the bank of elevators, and just as she got to the door, she felt the floor rumble. An impossibly loud noise filled the air, and then a wave of heat and pressure washed over her.

She was vaporised as the turbocannon factory was destroyed in a conflagration that could be seen for miles around, that sent shockwaves around the planet.

All around Ford XVII, as Raflog and Jenna died, as the factory was destroyed, the revolution began.


	43. Weapons of the Daleks: 8

'**Weapons of the Daleks'**

_Sixteen_

* * *

><p>The TARDIS materialised on the roof of a building not far from the inferno that had once been Ford XVII's turbocannon factory. Night had fallen now, and the moon above in the smoggy sky featured an enormous new crater. Smoke from the fire, though, quickly obscured it as the Doctor and Sophie led Cassia and Two back out onto the world they'd nearly died to free.<p>

"You could still come with us," Sophie said to Cassia as they stood on the edge of the rooftop, watching the flames lick the blackened sky.

Cassia wiped the last of her tears away. "I can't."

Sophie said nothing more, but the Doctor stepped over to Cassia, pulling her into a hug. After they'd left the factory, he'd taken the TARDIS into the Time Vortex for a while, to let the old girl soak up some energy after her traumatic day. He'd sat with Cassia, held her as she cried.

Sophie, far from the slight jealousy she'd felt earlier in the day, had seen then why the Doctor cared for Cassia so much; she was still a girl, a young woman, thrust into circumstances that had required resourcefulness and wisdom far beyond her years. She'd seen just about everyone she'd ever known killed over the course of one day. She was, if nothing else, one of the strongest people Sophie had ever met.

"Are you certain?" he asked her.

Cassia nodded, and spoke with a surprisingly clear voice. "The people need me, Doctor. I'm the face of the revolution, now. I can't just leave this planet. I can't just leave them."

The Doctor smiled proudly. "It won't be safe," he told her.

"Maybe not," Cassia said with a shrug, "but it's what needs to be done."

"What about you, Two?" Sophie asked.

The man, who had spent so much of his life in the direct service of the Daleks, looked scared. She wondered what he'd have to live for now that One, his companion for so many years, had been killed, now that he'd lost his home and his purpose for being.

"I'll need all the friends I can get," Cassia said, and she walked over to Two, placing her hand on the small of his back. "Especially a communications expert, if I'm going to keep in contact with the rebellion."

Two nodded. "I would… I would like that."

The Doctor grinned. "Wait a moment," he told the three of them, and slipped inside the TARDIS. He returned a moment later with a small box, coloured like the interior walls of the TARDIS in burnished yellow and orange. He presented it to Cassia. "This is one of the TARDIS' transmitters. You'll be able to use it to get in contact with anyone on the planet. It has a self-sustaining power cell, so it should last you a good long while."

"I'm sure I'll be able to whip something up to keep it running, if need's must," Cassia said.

"I'm sure you will," the Doctor agreed. He turned to Two. "Now, what are you going to do about your name?"

"My name?" Two asked, surprised.

The Doctor grinned. "You're free. You don't have to go by the designation the Daleks foisted on you."

Two laughed, as though a burden had been lifted. "I… I suppose you're right."

"You don't have to decide right now," Sophie said, interrupting. "It's an important decision."

"Oh, no," Two said, "I think I have an idea. How about Raflog?"

Cassia looked away, fresh tears coming to her eyes, but the Doctor smiled. "I think he'd be honoured."

He stepped over to Cassia, and took her into his arms. "You did so well, Cassia. You really did. This entire world has been changed irrevocably because of what you did today; history has been set, at least for the most part, right. Artraya, Vrin, Taro, Fixxa, Kami and especially Raflog would be so proud of you. So thankful."

She looked at him, tears in her eyes, and he knew that she would never rest until this world was free. "Thank you, Doctor."

"No, Cassia," he said, meaning it as he continued "Thank you. And, just so you know, you can use that transmitter to contact me. If, one day, you decide you've had enough of leading the revolution and want a nice trip to the Eye of Orion."

* * *

><p>A few hours later, the TARDIS was spinning a lazy course through the Time Vortex. The Doctor had begun to work on getting the console room back up to what passed for operational; he'd pulled out boxes of tools and components, and had decided to begin by assembling a new scanner screen.<p>

He hadn't thought much about what had happened on Ford XVII. The mindless busywork had been designed to keep his mind off of the killings he'd pushed for, the war he'd triggered. He thought of all those killed in the colony, in the factory, the human slaves that may have been in the Daleks' ziggurat; he even thought of the Daleks killed in the factory explosion. He'd promised Jenna that he'd take her away from Ford XVII in return for her help, but he hadn't even managed that. He was positive that she'd perished in the same explosion that had killed Raflog.

He'd sent Sophie off to have a shower after her day of crawling through sewers and battling Daleks, and he hoped that she'd go straight to bed.

His hopes were dashed, however, when she returned to the console room. She was wearing a TARDIS blue bathrobe, her hair wrapped in a matching towel. She even, the Doctor saw, was wearing a pair of his favourite slippers; a fuzzy, bright pink pair he'd had for centuries.

"Doctor," she said as she drew near.

"Yes, Sophie?" he asked.

"What will happen? On Ford XVII, I mean. There are still Daleks on the planet, right? And Security Section?"

The Doctor sighed, and set aside his work. "I'm not sure, really. As a Time Lord, I can see how situations are meant to play out, how the course of events is supposed to run. When we arrived on Ford XVII, everything was wrong. Maybe, now, I've set some things right, but I honestly can't tell."

"Why's that?" Sophie asked, looking genuinely concerned.

The Doctor felt something strange in the pit of his stomach. "I don't know," he lied. Rubbing the bridge of his nose to dispel a rapidly growing headache, he said "I have an idea."

"Oh?" Sophie asked, as the Doctor stood and went to the console. "And what's that?"

The Doctor began to manipulate controls, inputting coordinates. "I'm going to need a while to get everything working right in here again. Why not a brief holiday? A trip to the Eye of Orion, perhaps."

"That planet you offered to take Cassia to?" Sophie said.

"The very same," the Doctor said, and his expression clouded.

"You're worried about her, aren't you?" she said, and she stepped over to him, resting a hand on his shoulder.

The Doctor nodded, and he shut his eyes, forcing his worries from his mind. History would work as history always had; Cassia would do great things, he was sure. Finally, he turned to Sophie and said "You should go and have a rest. I'll get some more work done, and then get us straight to the Eye."

Sophie nodded and smiled, and she left the console room, padding off back towards her bedroom. The Doctor sighed once she'd left, and activated the TARDIS monitory. A familiar image appeared on screen; a newspaper article, a part of the historical record from a history that shouldn't exist. The source of the temporal disruptions, the reason his senses were so out of skew… it was Sophie. It was all Sophie.

She was meant to have died in 1996, fifteen years before he'd met her. She was meant to have died in the car accident that had killed her parents. The Doctor was becoming more and more convinced of this fact. It terrified him.

Yes, he was worried about Cassia. He was far more worried, however, about Sophie.


	44. The Cerberus Protocol: 1

**Historian's Note:** this story story takes some weeks after the events depicted in 'Weapons of the Daleks'

**Disclaimer:** the first paragraph is from Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley

* * *

><p><strong>'The Cerberus Protocol'<strong>

_1. The Console Room_

* * *

><p><em>"A few days after, the Turk entered his daughter's apartment and told her hastily that he had reason to believe that his residence at Leghorn had been divulged and that he should speedily be delivered up to the French government; he had consequently hired a vessel to convey him to Constantinople, for which city he should sail in a few hours. He intended to leave his daughter under the care of a confidential servant, to follow at her leisure with the greater part of his property, which had not yet arrived at Leghorn…"<em>

Sophie Freeman went to turn the page of the heavy, ancient hardback book; she'd read it before, back in high school, but something about holding this copy, a first edition that had been signed by the author, no less, made her heart flutter in her chest.

Back in Newcastle, before she'd met the Doctor, she'd spent so many hours of her life in a second hand bookstore, surrounded by the faint vanilla scent of old paperback novels, buying and selling them, sorting and stacking them. The heady feeling of being surrounded by all that knowledge, all of that stuff, had been one of the driving forces of her life.

Now she was aboard the TARDIS. She was a companion of the Doctor. She'd traveled through time and space, from New Tokyo to the Caves of Shabadoo, from a trip on the _Queen Mary_ to the streets of Siena in the seventeenth century. She was a different person, now; she could feel it in every fibre of her being, in every movement she made, in every yellowed, well-worn page she turned.

In the months since she'd first met the Doctor, she'd had been terrified, more terrified than she'd ever been in her life. A prisoner of the Daleks, a would-be sacrifice to a cult's alien figurehead. Her already willow-thin frame had been toned and strengthened by all the running, and she could have sworn that her throat had a permanent scratchiness, right back at the tonsils, from all the shouting. Her life had become far stranger than fiction, far more fantastic.

Still, as happy as she was to be aboard the TARDIS, as much as the ancient time-space ship had begun to feel like home, as much as the Doctor had cemented himself in her life as her best friend, nothing made her feel quite as safe, as happy or as peaceful as a good book.

Of course, aboard the TARDIS, it was all but impossible to escape history and the reality of a life with the Doctor. This book, the couch she sat on, the Edith Piaf '45 playing on the Doctor's phonograph; they were all artefacts, traces of the places he'd been, the people he'd met, the things he'd collected. The gentle hum of the TARDIS engines, the faint glow that suffused the ship's cavernous console room, reminded her of how alien her surroundings truly were.

Just as she was about to return to her book, a voice cut through her thoughts. "There you are!" the Doctor proclaimed.

She looked up to find his upside down face peering at her; he was kneeling on the floor of the raised tier that housed the TARDIS' six sided console, which sheltered the little seating area she'd colonised a few hours before. As annoyed as she was to be distracted from her book, she smiled back. "Good morning, Doctor," she said.

"I thought you'd gotten lost," he said, and his face disappeared. Not thirty seconds later he was back, having crossed the tier and descended the ramp down to the floor of the console room. "What are you reading?"

"I just found it on your bookshelf," Sophie explained, handing the old book to him. "Signed by the author, I see."

"_Frankenstein_!" the Doctor said, flipping to the first page and tracing the spidery lettering of the book's long dead author's name. "Excellent book. I knew Mary Shelley quite well."

"Somehow I'm not surprised," Sophie said, as he sat beside her. His expression had grown wistful now, and he was staring at the signature. "You seem to know everyone."

"The Grateful Dead gave me this couch," he said, patting the arm of the torn, patched, ratty old thing.

Sophie grinned, but noticed that the Doctor wasn't smiling. "Are you all right?"

He closed the book, put it aside and said "Who needs old memories, eh? Time to make some new ones!"

With that, he was on his feet, and running back towards the ramp up to the console. Sophie sighed, and shook her head before following him. Occasionally, he opened up to her, told her what he was thinking, what he was feeling, but those occasions were few and far between. She'd thought, hoped, that he'd eventually come out of his Time Lord shell, but he seemed obsessed with focusing on the present.

She was a girl without much of a past; she'd had almost nothing to anchor her to life on Earth. She was fascinated by personal histories every bit as much as she was by the wonders the Doctor had shown her. Time and space were nothing next to the stories that made up a person.

By the time she reached the console, the Doctor was already throwing levers and adjusting controls. The console came to life, and the blue column of the time rotor that sprouted from its centre began to move up and down; the TARDIS was preparing itself to make a journey through the Time Vortex, and even the very roundels set into the walls seemed to take on a new life.

"Where to today?" the Doctor asked, his grin broad. Sophie thought she saw a hint of something more in his eyes, but she couldn't quite make out what it was. "Any ideas?"

Sophie had given up trying to get the Doctor to go where she wanted to go. The TARDIS seemed to pick the destination entirely of its own accord. "None at all," she said with a shrug.

"How about a royal ball?" the Doctor said, and he began moving around the console again. "Nothing like a bit of a soiree at the palace, and I just so happen to have a standing invitation from King George to drop by whenever I feel like it."

Sophie laughed. "Sounds all right. King George of where?"

"George of England, of course!" the Doctor replied, seemingly offended. "You might not know this about me, being Australian, but I'm great friends with the British monarchy. _Most_ of the British monarchy. Some of the time."

"Who did you piss off?"

"Liz One wasn't a fan of me, I will admit," the Doctor said, "but in my defence I only ever implied that I wanted to get married to her. The other Liz was happier to see me, let me tell you, and Liz Ten couldn't get enough of me!"

Sophie was taken aback. "Queen Elizabeth _the Tenth_?"

"Oh the very same," the Doctor said, nodding.

She lifted an eyebrow. "All right then, which King George?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, which King George?" Sophie asked. "If memory serves me, there were quite a few."

"Oh, any of them," the Doctor said, "but why don't we try for one of the first three? The Hanoverians could throw a hell of a party."

Sophie laughed again, the Doctor's infectious enthusiasm picking her up and depositing her far away from the misgivings she'd had before. "Sounds good to me."

"Great!" the Doctor said, and was preparing himself to flick one last lever.

"Or…" she interrupted.

"Or?" he asked, arching an eyebrow, looking directly at her for the first time since she'd joined him at the console.

"Well, when I first came aboard, you know, weeks and weeks ago, you promised me Tokyo," Sophie said. "Not New Tokyo. Like, Tokyo Tokyo. In Japan on Earth in the twenty first century. No aliens, no history, just a nice bit of sight seeing. A bit of a break, maybe, from the running and the murder?"

The Doctor considered. "Well, if you want to be all boring about it."

"You have an invitation to drop in at King George's whenever you feel like it, right?" Sophie said, as though trying to sweeten the pot. "So, I don't know, maybe we could go another day. After I've been to Japan."

The Doctor smiled. "All right, then," he agreed.

He began to punch in the new destination, and Sophie kept a close watch on him. "Make sure you get it right," she said. "I don't want to end up running from an angry ronin or something."

"Nope," the Doctor promised. "Tokyo in the mid-to-late two thousands. The decade, not the millennium. You'll be the closest to home you've been yet."

"That actually sounds awesome."

"Yes," the Doctor agreed, evidently unimpressed. "Even if it does reek of a lack of imagination."

Sophie rolled her eyes as he made the final adjustments to the TARDIS' course, and he flung down the final lever.

Usually, when the TARDIS went into flight, it did so with a wheezing, grinding noise that sounded as though two universes were being rubbed together; it was the sound of time and space being rent apart and then melded anew. Not this time, however. This time, as soon as the Doctor slammed down the lever, the console room was plunged into darkness.

"Oh, buggery," was all he said.

"I'm never going to get to Tokyo, am I?" Sophie whispered into the black.


	45. The Cerberus Protocol: 2

**'The Cerberus Protocol'**

_2. Storage_

* * *

><p>"Buggery," the Doctor said again. "Buggery, buggery, buggery."<p>

Sophie just blinked as her eyes slowly adjusted to the pitch blackness she and the Doctor suddenly found themselves standing in. She held out her hand in front of her face, but she could barely make it out; just a slightly darker smudge in a field of uninhibited blackness. Even the intrinsic light that shone from the TARDIS walls was gone. "What happened, Doctor?" she asked.

She could hear him moving around her, feeling his way across the console, evidently looking for something. He didn't answer her. Instead, he was muttering away under his breath.

"Doctor," she said, louder, "what happened?"

Again he ignored her. She began to follow the sound of his movements, taking each step with extra caution. She thought she'd found him, when, suddenly, she tripped over something, something warm and solid, and very nearly sprawled across the glass floor. She managed to catch the railing that ringed the raised tier, and the Doctor cried out in pain.

"What did you stand on me for?" he demanded, sounding like nothing so much as a sulky toddler.

"Oh, come on," she said, "it's not like I meant to!"

"Yeah, yeah," the Doctor said; she could tell that he was standing again, probably at the console, but she still couldn't see anything. She decided to stick to the railing for the time being.

"What _happened_?" she repeated, as forcefully as she could.

"I don't know," the Doctor said. "The TARDIS is dead."

"Dead?" Sophie echoed, horrified. She knew that the TARDIS was, at least partially, organic. The Doctor had referred to it as having been grown, and typically used feminine pronouns when referring to it. It had definitely demonstrated a will and consciousness of its own, if not a _mind_ in and of itself.

"No, not _dead_ dead," the Doctor was saying. "Dead the way a battery dies. I don't understand how… we were travelling in the Time Vortex, no problem at all. As far as I could see, there was nothing at all wrong with the power systems."

"So what are we going to do?" Sophie asked. The Doctor was poking through something. She could hear metal clattering against metal as he searched.

"First thing's first," she heard him say. "We need some power."

She heard movement, a squeaking noise that sounded like a crank being turned in a rusty socket. Some light crackled across the surface of the console, and in the impenetrable blackness of the darkened control room, it was almost blinding. It was also the most beautiful light Sophie had ever seen. Her heart had been beating abnormally fast in her chest, and her panic had been rising. As much as the TARDIS had become a sanctuary for her on her travels with the Doctor, she wasn't sure she entirely trusted it.

"Aha!" the Doctor cried. The sound of crank being turned grew louder and fast, and then the console came to life. Sophie blinked against the light, and realised that she'd been clutching to the railing very tightly. "Easy. Just needed a bit of a jumpstart."

"How did we just lose power like that?" she asked, joining the Doctor. He passed the crank to her. It looked almost like a brass and bronze eggbeater, with a power lead that was plugged directly into a port beneath the scanner screen, which remained dark.

"Keep turning it!" he urged, and she started to. It was a bit of a struggle, but after a few seconds she got into a good rhythm. "I'm going to see if I can get the scanner working, find out where we are. What happened."

"Why don't we just open the door and have a look?" she asked.

"Because I don't know where we are," the Doctor said, "and if the TARDIS has been sucked dry of power, she won't be able to maintain the atmosphere shell if we open the doors. You could be sucked out into a vacuum or worse; get me sucked out into a vacuum!"

"Charming," Sophie said, shaking her head. Sophie's wrist was starting to ache. "Can we speed this up, Doctor?"

"Give me a second," he said, "just keep cranking that thing."

Sophie sighed, and redoubled her efforts. The scanner screen slowly came to life, as a blast of static shot across it. It displayed nothing but darkness, a copy of the gloom that surrounded them in the console room.

"Can I stop now?" she asked, as the Doctor stared at the screen. He nodded mutely, and as she set the device aside, she realised there was something wrong with him. "Doctor, what is it?"

"There's nothing," he said, shaking his head slowly. "There's nothing out there at all."

"What do you mean? You mean, like, we're in space?"

"No," the Doctor said. "If we were just in space, it'd be easy. We're not in space. We're nowhere. A dead zone in the Time Vortex. The minute we passed through it, it drained the energy out of the TARDIS. Right out of it. All the batteries, all the cells. They've been sucked dry."

"How did that happen?" Sophie asked. She was terrified by the blank look in the Doctor's eyes, the tightness of his voice. "Can we get out?"

"Not unless you can turn that crank for the next thousand years," the Doctor said. "And even if you could, that'd barely be enough to keep the console ticking over."

Sophie blinked, something about what the Doctor just said overriding her worry. "Wait a second."

"What?"

"If the crank isn't enough to keep the console going," she said, "then how come it's still running? How come the scanner's still working?"

The Doctor's eyes lit up. "Oh, Sophie, you are brilliant! I can't believe I didn't see it."

Reaching into the pocket of his customary long dark coat, he whipped out his sonic screwdriver. The long, cylindrical device came to life. The Doctor ran it over the console, giving it a shout of joy.

"What is it?" she asked, but he was already off and running. A moment later, he was poring over something on the other side of the console. She went to join him, but he was already digging through a small box full of items Sophie couldn't make out. "Doctor!"

"Yes?" he said, and Sophie saw something like mania behind his eyes as he looked at her. Most disconcertingly, he wasn't blinking at all.

"Talk to me, Doctor," she said, quietly, fighting to keep her voice even and her fear in check. "You're not alone here. Tell me what's going on."

The Doctor swallowed, and thought for a moment. "Stuff like this has happened before. The TARDIS has lost power, been set adrift, sometimes it's even been sent spiralling off into another universe altogether."

"So?"

"So," the Doctor said, "you're right. If we are in a proper dead zone, if the TARDIS has been sucked dry of all its power, the console shouldn't still be active. It'd be an absolute miracle that we got the scanner working. The fact that it still is tells me that, somewhere on this ship, is a working power source."

Sophie grinned. "But that's excellent! That means we can fix the ship!"

"And why do you think that?" the Doctor asked, and Sophie came up short. "It means there's a chance. A slim chance, but a slim chance looks like a great big fat one when, a few seconds ago, there wasn't any chance at all."

Sophie was taken aback. "Excuse me?"

The Doctor had gone back to rooting through the box. "I'm sorry, Sophie, I am, but the TARDIS is much more to me than a ship. She's my friend. She's my home. More than that, she is the very last TARDIS in the whole of the universe. It's just her."

Sophie felt for him; he'd told her of the loss of his people, the destruction of his homeworld during the Time War. She couldn't imagine the level of connection he must share with the TARDIS. "What happens if it doesn't work?" she said.

"You don't want to know," he answered, but she wasn't satisfied.

"No, come on, Doctor," she chided. "That's not fair. I deserve to know."

He sighed, his shoulders slumping. "We'll be stuck here. In this portion of nowhere, with only each other and a dark and dying ship."

She swallowed. "For how long?"

The Doctor laughed, and she was hurt by how bitter he sounded. "We could say that we'll only be here a few days, or a few hours or a few minutes. We could hope that someone might wander by in the Time Vortex, but that's not exactly likely these days. No, I think a far better answer would be... forever."

Sophie's eyes widened. "We'll be here forever. In the dark."

"And the cold," the Doctor said. "Can't you feel it? There's already a bit of a chill seeping into the air."

Tears were welling up in the corners of her eyes. "Doctor, don't say that. Please."

"I..." he began, but once again his shoulders slumped and he let out a long, hissing breath. "No, Sophie, you're right. I'm sorry."

She knelt beside him and touched his shoulders. She buried her worry, put aside everything she was feeling aside from hope, optimism and her faith in the Doctor. "I understand. Just talk me through what you're doing and then I can help. We'll get out of this."

He laughed, and she was relieved to hear there was genuine happiness in his voice. "You're right, we will."

Sophie grinned. "Okay, brilliant. So what are you looking for?"

"Some light," the Doctor said, and resumed shifting through the contents of the box. "I know I kept them around here somewhere."

"The sonic screwdriver won't work as a torch?" she asked. She'd seen it used as just about everything else. A lockpick, a scanning device, even a weapon.

"It can be," the Doctor said, "but I'll need to use it to track down the source of the power signature." Finally, he pulled something from the box. Two somethings, actually. Sophie couldn't quite make out what they were through the gloom, but he handed one of them to her.

She took it, and found herself holding something made of metal, clunky and finished in dull black. She realised with a start that she was holding an old style electric lamp.

The Doctor flicked his own lamp on. A cold white beam of light carved through the oppressive darkness. The TARDIS looked like it had been abandoned; Sophie realised with a start that without the intrinsic light that glowed from the walls and the ceiling and the roundels, the TARDIS looked positively ancient, and almost completely uninhabited.

"Are you okay?" the Doctor asked, noticing the look on her face.

"Yeah," she said, uncomfortably. "it's just… the darkness feels wrong. I don't know."

"You're telling me," the Doctor said. "I guess you're finally about to get that tour of the TARDIS you've been asking for."

* * *

><p>Sophie had been aboard the TARDIS for months now, but she hadn't actually seen that much of it. She wasn't quite sure how the actual geography of the miraculous ship worked, aside from same vague hints and statements on the part of the Doctor, but in the dark the place reminded her of a haunted house. The shadows seemed to move; she could have sworn she felt something brush against the backs of her legs.<p>

"Are you all right?" the Doctor asked as she shivered and clasped the sleeve of his coat.

"I'm fine," she answered. Their lamps carved swathes of light through the blackness, but without the light of the TARDIS everything seemed grey and dead. She stuck close to the Doctor, closer than she would have liked. More disquieting than the darkness and the desaturated colours that surrounded them, though, was the silence. Back in Newcastle even on particularly still nights, she'd at least been able to hear, from her apartment, the horns of ships waiting out on the ocean; even without the hum of her refrigerator or the rattling of the old building's pipes, there had always been noise.

Some sound, to remind her that there was a world outside of the walls of her cramped, way-too-lived-in apartment. On the TARDIS, that feeling had been even more pronounced. The constant hum of the engines, even while the TARDIS had been at rest or just cruising through the Time Vortex, had served that purpose. She'd become so familiar with it, so used to it, that the quiet that surrounded her now was deeply worrying.

Her chest seemed to tighten. All she could hear was their footsteps echoing down the corridor, and the sounds of their breathing. She was almost tempted to sing just to alleviate the deafening stillness.

"Are you sure?" the Doctor asked, and Sophie was relieved that he was pressing the issue.

Perhaps, by now, the one thing each of them absolutely knew about the other was that statements probably shouldn't be taken at face value. The Doctor was honest, sometimes almost to a fault, but there was usually, if not always, more to what he said than could be immediately understood.

"No," she admitted, and he reached down and took her hand. She was glad to feel the warmth of his skin against hers. Sometimes, no matter how much they went through together, no matter how well she understood, intellectually, that the Doctor was there for her and probably would be for a long time yet, she needed and actual, physical reminder of his presence.

"Come on," he said, "we don't have that much farther to go."

"Where are we going?"

"I'm not sure," the Doctor said.

"That's not exactly comforting, Doctor," Sophie told him as they continued to trudge down the corridor. "Don't you know this ship like the back of your hand or something?"

"I do," he answered, sounding somewhat defensive. "it's just that there's an awful lot of ship to know and I haven't been down here for a few hundred years."

"A few hundred years," Sophie echoed. "Jesus."

The Doctor shrugged. "Like I said, there's a lot of ship."

They'd left the console room through one of the corridors that snaked away from it. Sophie had really only spent her time in the TARDIS in the console room or her bedroom, with occasional visits to the TARDIS wardrobe and the kitchens. Most of their time together had spent outside of the old time ship, on alien worlds or in the depths of Earth's history. As they continued down this particular corridor, though, Sophie noticed that there was a lot of dust, and it was growing thicker.

"I need your light," the Doctor said as he stopped at one of the roundels spaced evenly along the wall. Sophie saw that it was a darkened screen, like the enormous scanner screen that took up the entirety of the largest roundel on the wall of the console room. Sophie lifted her lamp and shined it towards the

The Doctor had to scrape away a thick layer of dust to reach the screen, and though it flared briefly, the screen went black and dark a moment later.

"Damn it," the Doctor muttered to himself.

"What is that?" Sophie asked, nodding towards the dark screen.

"A back-up console," the Doctor explained, and he tried pressing some buttons set into the bottom of the roundel. There was no response. "There's no power down here, either."

"I thought that was obvious," Sophie said, looking around at the thick dust that surrounded them.

"Why do you say that?" the Doctor asked, and he began to continue his walk down the corridor, Sophie keeping step.

"All the dust! Doesn't the TARDIS clean itself?"

The Doctor shrugged "Sometimes. She's temperamental."

Sophie paused. "Doctor, is the TARDIS really alive?"

His eyes seemed to twinkle for a moment as he answered. "Oh, yes. No. Sort of. It depends how you look at it. She's definitely living. She can think and feel, respond and react. I met her once, you know. Had a nice chat with her."

"You _met_ the TARDIS?"

"I did indeed," the Doctor said, grinning. "That was a nice day. Out of this world, actually. Well, out of the universe at any rate."

Sophie shook her head. She was never certain which of the Doctor's stories were true and which were lies. This one, especially, seemed fantastical in the extreme, and if it were anyone else speaking, she would have had no compunctions about labelling it a lie and moving on. With the Doctor, though, she could never be quite so certain.

They reached a door in the wall of the TARDIS corridor, a hexagonal hatchway. The Doctor set his lamp on the ground, and beckoned Sophie over to him. He touched the roundel set into the wall nearest the door, and the covering came loose.

"Normally," the Doctor explained, "the door would open automatically. Without any power, it's up to us to get a bit creative. Hold your light up here so I can get a better look."

Sophie did as she was told, and peered into the roundel. She saw a forest of circuits and wires, held together with what looked like paper clips. "Oh my God, Doctor, it's a mess."

"One man's mess is another man's filing system," he said archly as he began to remove one particular circuit.

"What are you trying to do?" Sophie asked, attempting to get a better look.

"If I can trip the emergency circuit, there should be enough power to force the door open," the Doctor told her. "There we go!"

A few sparks shot from the open roundel, and the door suddenly slid open. A gasp of stale, warm air escaped the once-sealed chamber, revealing a rather large, hexagonal room. Sophie realised that it was absolutely enormous, and so shrouded in darkness that the powerful lamps she and the Doctor carried barely pierced the gloom.

The Doctor stepped into the room, which crammed with crates; plastic, metal, wood. Sophie thought she could smell hay, and was sure she heard bats in the distant rafters high above.

"It's enormous," Sophie said, and heard her voice echo.

"Yes it is," the Doctor agreed, turning back to her. His lamp shone towards her, and the light glinted off a small brass plaque on her own lamp.

"Oh my God, Doctor!" Sophie said, unable to believe what she'd seen on the plaque. "Are these genuine?"

"Are what genuine?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

"The lamps," Sophie asked, and she read the plaque again. "They're from the _Titanic_!"

"Oh, yeah," the Doctor nodded, and turned back to the piles of crates. For him, evidently, the matter was closed. Sophie, though, was still reeling. She'd grown up with the _Titanic_ movie, seen it half a dozen times. She had even visited the travelling museum exhibition as a little girl, one of the few outings she'd gotten as a foster kid.

That event, for her, had been history. A tragic, heartbreaking story, but just a stort. The Doctor had been there and, she realised most hauntingly, had failed to stop it, failed to prevent all those deaths. She knew about his rules surrounding intervention in the past, but to her the concept of not saving lives that you knew were directly in danger chilled her to her core. She was about to protest, to push for more information, when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye.

"What's that?" she said, pointing towards the source of the movement.

A few motes of light, almost like glowing dust, seemed to rise from a particularly dusty corner of the room, before dying.

"Curious," the Doctor said, though he didn't sound excited; more concerned than anything. "Stay back. I have no idea what might have ended up down here." "What do you mean?"

"Every now and then the TARDIS rearranges herself," the Doctor explained, "or else I rearrange her. This room is where all the stuff I don't use ends up. It's gotten progressively larger over the last eight or nine centuries."

Sophie, despite herself, was surprised by the pronouncement. The length of the Doctor's travels still boggled her mind. The thought of the ancient, wondrous mysteries that surrounded her in this cavernous, dust-choked chamber was awe-inspiring.

The Doctor led the way towards the source of the light, Sophie keeping close behind. He knelt in the dust, and shined his lamp towards the source: a small, featureless black cube.

"What is that?" Sophie asked, leaning over his shoulder.

"I have absolutely no idea," the Doctor admitted, frowning. He set his lamp down on the decking, making sure that it's light still kept the cube, the box, illuminated. Its surface, though, seemed to absorb the light. It was flawlessly black, uninterrupted by markings of any kind. Sophie couldn't see a way to open it. He leant down to sniff the box and then gingerly pressed a finger to it, wiping away some of the dust.

A rush of shining motes drifted up from the top of the box, and it seemed to glow with an inner light. Both lamps immediately went dark, the blue radiance given off by the box throwing strange shadows across the chamber.

Sophie jumped, backing away, and the Doctor's eyes widened considerably.

Strange, echoing noises came from the box, as though machinery was ticking over; it sounded almost like a computer starting up. Though the shadows that played across the walls constantly shifted and changed, a definite shape began to appear on the wall.

"Doctor," Sophie warned, pointing.

The Doctor looked up, and saw the shadowy, lupine form, that appeared to be emanating from the box.

"Get back!" the Doctor ordered as a sudden pulse of kinetic energy ripped through the still air, sending ripples of dust flying in all directions. The Doctor was thrown back, but Sophie managed to dodge aside. He sprawled across the deck, hard, and by the time he'd recovered the shadow had grown manifest.

A ghostly, wolf-like creature, its ethereal fur marked with roundels like the walls of the TARDIS, glared at the Doctor and Sophie. Its paws, as large as Sophie's hands didn't quite touch the decking. It looked like a hologram, and strange symbols danced beneath the surface of its intangible skin. It glowed blue, just as the now-dark box had.

"What is it, Doctor?" Sophie asked, throat tight with concern.

The holographic creature, the wolf, growled.

"I don't know," the Doctor said, whispering. He couldn't quite take his eyes off the creature, but he recognised the glowing symbols. "What are you?"

The wolf opened its jaws, exposing threatening holographic teeth.

"It's a hologram, isn't it?" Sophie asked the Doctor. "I mean, it's not real. It can't hurt us."

"The energy wave that knocked me over might be the least of its capabilities," the Doctor explained. He stood, and interposed himself between the creature, still staring at them with what looked like murderous intent.

"What are you?" he repeated.

The creature made a noise that sounded somewhat like a bark, and it turned then, running from the open door.

"No!" the Doctor cried, as the wolf fled into the darkened TARDIS corridor. He followed, running as fast as he could to keep up with it, but its long, loping strides, paws never quite touching the floor, soon propelled it far up the corridor.

"Doctor!" Sophie cried, dashing to the door just in time to see him vanish into the gloom. She heard his footsteps echoing, and began to chase after him, but within a few seconds those sounds had died away. She came, stumbling, to a halt. The darkness pressed in around her, the air cold and stale, and she shivered. She'd left her lamp in the storage room.

"Doctor!" she shouted, and heard her own voice echo in the gloom.

Only silence responded. She shivered; she was alone. Completely and totally alone.


	46. The Cerberus Protocol: 3

**'The Cerberus Protocol'**

_3. The Protocol_

* * *

><p>The Doctor was still running, his hearts pounding. His mind was racing. He knew where he was going instinctively, following the faint blue glow of the rapidly retreating holographic wolf-creature. He had no idea what that thing was, but he had some theories and none of them bode well for him, for Sophie or for the TARDIS.<p>

The silence of the TARDIS without even the familiar hum of its engines idling in the background was deeply disturbing. All he could hear was his own breathing and the sound of his footsteps echoing down the long corridor. He saw the wolf creature take a turn up ahead, and he knew immediately where it was headed: the console room.

He redoubled his efforts to catch up, pushing this body of his, large and imposing and unwieldy as it was, to the limits of its physical abilities.

He burst into the console room, and saw the wolf had vanished, replaced now by a glowing blue cat, its shape fluid but still certainly feline, perched on the TARDIS console. The Doctor slowed, trying to get his breathing under control, and headed up the ramp towards the raised tier.

As he got closer, he saw that the cat was trying to communicate with the TARDIS matrix, but the ship had been completely drained of power.

The Doctor tried to stay as hidden as he could, moving slowly, keeping to the shadows, until he was in position to pounce on the hologram; he leapt, but even as he tried to grab the creature another wave of energy slammed him square in the chest, knocking him back and damn near over the rail that edged the tier.

"What _are_ you?" the Doctor demanding, wheezing through the sharp pain in his chest.

The cat, its features still strangely lupine, glanced back at him, and then the motes of light dancing between its outstretched paw and the TARDIS console began to glow brighter. The Doctor had to shield his eyes a few moments later, the light glowing brighter than the sun.

Then, just as quickly as it had started, the light stopped.

A few moments later, while the Doctor was still trying to figure out what was going on, the emergency lights in the console room flickered on. In the distance, he could hear the TARDIS engines began to work again, feeding just enough power to keep the ship functioning at bare minimum into its systems.

"What are you doing?" the Doctor asked, recovering now. He stepped towards the cat.

The small scanner screen mounted on the console flickered to life, and a cascade of images fell across it; the Doctor saw a few faces he recognised interspersed between pictures of alien landscapes and complicated diagrammatic representations of space-time. The information of the TARDIS Matrix was playing out on the screen. The images flew by at a greater pace with every second, and the Doctor realised that the creature, the cat-wolf hologram, was absorbing as much information as it could.

Still, though, the TARDIS' databanks wouldn't be complete, especially after the trauma she'd just experienced, losing all power so suddenly. Whatever the creature was trying to learn, no doubt it would only learn part of the story.

The Doctor suddenly remembered Sophie, and hoped that she'd had enough sense to stay put, or was fleet enough of foot to have kept up with him and the creature and was now keeping watch from the entrance of the control room. He wished fervently that she was with him now; his TARDIS, his home, was being threatened, and with a rush of existential dread he realised that, at this moment, she was literally the only thing in the universe he could count on.

Finally, the parade of images, the TARDIS' memories, came to an end and the screen blinked dark.

The creature turned to look at the Doctor, surveying him.

With a strange, robotic voice, it said "You are thief."

The Doctor blinked; the TARDIS had called him her thief, years earlier. That was technically the truth. He had, after all, stolen the TARDIS from the Citadel of the Time Lords on Gallifrey, taking his granddaughter with him and going off to explore time and space. He said nothing, though.

The creature cocked its head, evidently considering something. When it spoke again, it spoke with a voice that was not its own. A woman's voice, deep and powerful with a hint of threatening malice behind it.

"Identify yourself!"

The Doctor blinked when he heard that voice. He'd have recognised it anywhere, even centuries after he'd last met the woman to whom it belonged. It was the voice of his companion, Leela.

"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said, the answer almost literally shocked out him by the sound of Leela's voice.

"Doctor," the creature responded, still in Leela's voice. Then it considered again, before saying "Grandfather. Professor. Spaceman. Sweetie."

As it rattled off the different names the Doctor's companions had called him in the past, its voice changed; he heard Susan speak, then Ace, then Donna and finally River.

"Why are you using the voices of my former companions?" the Doctor demanded; he couldn't help but feel offended by the way the creature was working its way through his past, using the voices, the identities, of his friends as its own.

The creature didn't answer.

"Speak!" the Doctor demanded, and almost wished he hadn't.

"You are a Time Lord," the cat-wolf responded, in a thick American accent that wandered from one coast of the United States to another as the sentence went on. "You have taken unlawful possession of this capsule."

"Yes, yes," the Doctor agreed, "but that was centuries ago!"

The creature cocked its head, speaking now with a working-class London accent. "You admit your crimes?"

"Yes!" the Doctor said, exasperated. "I've been put on trial by the Time Lords twice, now, and I have been punished for my so-called 'crimes'!"

"No record found," the creature responded, its accent now liltingly Scottish.

Of all the things for the TARDIS' databanks to leave out, it just had to be the two times he'd faced the supposed "justice" of the Time Lords. Those two trials had, combined, cost him three companions, and the first had seen forced his regeneration and exile to Earth. The second had been a fit-up, an attempt by his greatest enemy, the long-dead Time Lord known only as the Master, to destroy him.

"Admission of guilt logged," the creature said, and this time it spoke with Sophie's voice. The Doctor shivered as he heard his latest companion's voice, and his thoughts once again went to her, trapped somewhere below decks. He was all but certain now that she was lost in the depths of the TARDIS. "Your crime will be reported. This time capsule will be returned. You will be arrested and punished."

The Doctor blinked. "What?"

The console came to life, and buttons and controls began to activate seemingly of their own accord.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, rushing forward.

"Setting course for Gallifrey," the creature announced, and now the Doctor heard his own voice echoed back to him.

"Why?" the Doctor demanded, aghast.

"Your crimes will be reported. This time capsule will be returned. You will be arrested and punished," the creature repeated.

"Crimes?" the Doctor echoed. "What are you talking about? What are you?"

"I am the Protocol," the creature told him; apparently it had settled on using his voice. The tone was modulated, though, distressingly cold and detached. "You are the Time Lord identified as the Doctor. You are a dangerous criminal. You will be returned to Gallifrey. You will be arrested and punished."

"A dangerous criminal? My left foot!" the Doctor protested, and went to the console, determined to undo whatever the creature had done. As he laid hands on the controls, however, a sharp spike of electrical current coursed into his fingers. He cried out, nursing small burns.

"You have taken unauthorised possession of a time capsule. You have violated the laws of non-interference. You have allowed lesser species entrance into this capsule on numerous occasions."

"Lesser species?" the Doctor roared, outraged. "How dare you! They're my friends!"

"They are aliens," the Protocol repeated. "They have no business having access to Time Lord technology."

The Doctor swallowed. "Is that what you are? Time Lord technology? A security system of some kind?"

"Yes," the Protocol replied a moment later.

"Designed to what? Hijack stolen TARDISes and return them to Gallifrey?" the Doctor asked, though he already knew the answer. "How long have you been dormant down there? A thousand years?"

The Protocol considered. "Unknown."

"Why haven't you activated before now?" the Doctor demanded. "I've been on this ship for more centuries than I care to remember, had more companions than I'd care to count. So you've been what? Just sitting there? Gathering dust?"

"Unknown," the Protocol said again.

"Scan the databanks," the Doctor told it, taking a step towards it. "You've missed a lot. Gallifrey doesn't exist anymore."

The Protocol waited as it sifted through the TARDIS' knowledge, compromised though it was. "Unable to confirm," it announced at last, and the Doctor suddenly felt sick.

"What?" he said, feeling as though he'd been punched in the gut.

"Unable to confirm," the Protocol repeated, apparently unfazed.

The controls on the console were still being activated remotely, the Protocol obviously inputting the coordinates for Gallifrey. Gallifrey, however, no longer existed; it had been destroyed, utterly, in the during the Last Great Time War fought between the Daleks and the Time Lords.

"You can't take the TARDIS to Gallifrey! It's been Time Locked!" the Doctor protested. "The entire planet, the entire War, has been sealed away! Locked out of history!"

"Unable to confirm," the Protocol said.

"Scan the temporal coordinates!" the Doctor ordered, desperate.

"Unable to comply," the Protocol answered. The Doctor's hearts nearly stopped; the TARDIS was running on the barest of power margins, what little energy the Protocol had supplied to its depleted batteries being sucked up by the Protocol's own requirements and the barely-functioning engines. Just as the databanks were still largely offline, the TARDIS sensors must not have been functioning.

The lever that usually activated the TARDIS engines and sent it into flight began to slide downwards. The Doctor leapt towards it, but another shock sent him back.

"You can't do this!" the Doctor cried. "The TARDIS can't get through a Time Lock, and even if it could, you'd be sentencing the universe to a fate worse than anything that can be imagined!"

The Protocol looked again at the Doctor. "Explain."

"There was a war," the Doctor said, his throat suddenly dry. Unbidden, memories of the conflict came to mind. "A war worse than any the universe had ever seen. For the lesser species, it passed unnoticed, but for the Time Lords it meant devastation. Constant, endless devastation. Millions were killed with every second that passed, then brought back to die in new, horrifying ways. Over and over again."

The Protocol's head tilted to an uncomfortable angle.

"I ended it. I ended the war, and it cost me everything," the Doctor said, "but I'll do it all again if I have to. If you take the TARDIS to Gallifrey, you'll either destroy us or break the Time Lock, and I cannot allow you to do that under any circumstances."

"Explain," the Protocol demanded.

"It's not just Gallifrey sealed away behind the Time Lock," the Doctor said. "Not just the Time Lords. It's the Daleks, the Skaro Degradations, the Cyber Horrors, the Could Have Been King and his army of Meanwhiles and Never Weres. The universe descended into hell, Protocol, and I won't abide seeing that happen again. I will destroy this TARDIS if I have to."

"You will destroy yourself?" the Protocol asked, and the coding language that flittered through its holographic matrix suddenly sped up. "You will destroy her?"

On the scanner screen, an image of Sophie appeared. She was wandering down a dusty corridor of the TARDIS, obviously lost.

"_Doctor?_" she was calling.

The screen went blank as the Doctor took a step towards it. He swallowed, and he hoped that Sophie would be able to understand how sorry he was. "I had to stop the Time Lock being broken once before. It cost me my entire world. I'd do it again, in a beat of my hearts. My life? Sophie's? A small price to pay."

"Then you leave no other option," the Protocol said.

A thin hissing noise filled the console room. "What are you doing?" the Doctor demanded.

The console room had been damaged by a Dalek attack during the time the Doctor and Sophie had spent on factory planet Ford XVII, and though the Doctor had repaired most of the damage, he hadn't quite worked out all the bugs; the Protocol, he realised, was trying to suck the oxygen out of the console room, which would have killed him instantly. Instead, it was struggling to pull the air, the filtration system having been damaged after sucking up a great deal of vapourised coolant.

"You can't do this," the Doctor told the Protocol, desperate now. Pleading. "If you break the Time Lock, there's no telling what will happen. The war became hell, Protocol. Please, listen to me!"

"You are a thief," the Protocol said, and its voice was becoming harder to hear. "There is no reason to accept your unsubstantiated statements as fact. This capsule will be brough back to Gallifrey. You will be arrested and punished."

The console room was losing atmosphere now at an alarming rate. The Doctor was starting to back towards the door to the corridor, back towards the storage room. He had to find Sophie, had to make sure she was safe; then he'd return, and he'd stop the Protocol if it was the last thing he'd ever do.

He had to. He owed that much to the universe, at the very least.

"Don't do this," the Doctor said, and he found that he was now gasping for air, even as he reached the doorway to the corridor. "You don't have to do this!"

"Negative," the Protocol informed him. "Orders are clear."

The Doctor shook his head, and stepped out of the console room. Immediately, the doors slid shut and sealed behind him. He took a deep breath of fresh air. That thing, the Protocol, was clearly some kind of Time Lord security device, designed to take control of a stolen TARDIS and return it to Gallifrey. But why, then, had it waited this long to activate? Had the TARDIS shunted it down to that storage room on purpose? Had she kept it isolated and secret, a hidden danger she'd never wanted the Doctor to face.

He looked down the darkened corridor, and thought about Sophie. His first priority now was finding her. After that, he'd come up with a plan to defeat the Protocol, and save the universe from the horrors of the Time War.

* * *

><p>The lights had come back on soon after she'd lost track of the Doctor, but they glowed only weakly and Sophie still had no idea where she was at all. While she and the Doctor had been descending into the depths of the TARDIS, the corridors had seemed straight, but this one, she saw, was curving gently.<p>

"Hello?" she shouted, but the only response was her own voice echoed back and the gentle hum of the TARDIS engines starting up again.

She'd been comforted by that sound for the last few months, travelling with the Doctor. It had been an easy, relaxing noise, and after her adventures with the Doctor, stepping back into the quiet of the TARDIS was like slipping into a warm bath. This, however, was terrifying; she was alone, and she had no idea how to get back to the console room. She couldn't have taken a wrong turn; she'd followed the exact path the Doctor had led her down earlier.

There didn't seem to be any doorways, just the endless corridor. She resumed her walk down it, her footsteps echoing lankly. The corridor had grown less dusty, the burnished orange and gold of the walls shining ever so slightly. The intrinsic light of the TARDIS walls had also been a comfort to her since she'd come aboard, the way it seemed to respond to her needs at any given time, brightening and dimming.

Now, though, there was something slightly menacing about the glow, as though it represented something waiting to pounce. It unnerved her.

After a while, she reached a branching junction in the corridor. Five different passages stretched away from her position, and as she looked down each she suddenly experienced a headrush of vertigo. One appeared to twist around itself as it went. Another seemed to double back in the direction she'd just come from and eventually intersect the corridor she'd been walking down which, she remembered, had no doors anywhere along it.

Two more seemed to go on normally, but a third took a sudden turn upwards into the ceiling. She had known that the geography of the TARDIS, a space made extant only by pure force of mathematics, would get weird but she hadn't expected this.

"Oh, God, Doctor, I could really use you right now," she said.

She'd told the Doctor time and time again that they should never separate; every time they had, something had gone wrong. The first time they'd parted after meeting, the entire universe had almost vanished out from under her and she'd almost been devoured by a chronivorous leech, a member of the mysterious Trickster's Brigade. In New Tokyo she'd fought off crazed robots, in Siena she'd been kidnapped by a cult and on Ford XVII she'd been captured by the Daleks. Now, she was lost in the TARDIS and she wasn't enjoying it at all.

Sophie had always been an independent person, and she thought she'd always remain so, but she was in an environment she knew next to nothing about. She needed to find the Doctor, and she needed to find him fast. The corridors were still growing colder, and soon she'd be shivering. She thought of the Doctor's enormous coat, the long, black garment he wore everywhere, regardless of whether or temperature. It had kept her so warm on Ford XVII.

Sighing, she chose one of the straight corridors and began to walk down it. The ship was, the Doctor had told her, all but endless.

She couldn't help but wonder what that holographic wolf creature had been. It had tossed the Doctor aside easily. If that was loose in the TARDIS, there was no telling the damage it could do, not just to the TARDIS but to the universe itself. Her experience with the Daleks had been relatively brief, though certainly horrifying, and if she'd learnt one thing from them and their desperation to take possession of the TARDIS it was that the entire universe was lucky that the Doctor had control of the time ship.

She reached the end of the corridor fast than she thought she would. There was no left or right turn; instead, an enormous shaft shot up and down. She leaned over the edge, and couldn't see the bottom. She was shaken by the sight, and stepped back, hoping to retrace her steps.

Maybe, if the TARDIS was functioning properly, that would be some kind of gravity lift, the TARDIS' version of an elevator.

Sophie was happy never to try that particular piece of TARDIS technology.

Then, she heard a voice echo through the corridor, and came up short when she realised it was hers. "_Doctor?_" her voice said, loudly ricocheting down the hexagonal corridor.

"What the hell is that?" she said to no one. She was getting more and more discomforted. Suppose that creature, that thing from the storage room, had found its way to the console room? Was it why the lights were back on?

She continued walking down the corridor, and a few moments later found herself at another junction. She felt deeply unsettled, looking at the two corridors that led away from her at the intersection. A queasy sensation forced its way into her stomach, and she had to hold her head as an overwhelming desire to vomit took over her.

What was happening to her? Now she couldn't see. Her perceptions were being blocked, altered.

She screamed.


	47. The Cerberus Protocol: 4

**'The Cerberus Protocol'**

_4. Corridors_

* * *

><p>Unbidden, memories of home flew through the Doctor's mind as he raced down the TARDIS corridors.<p>

Exploring the ancient Citadel of the Time Lords as a child, playing in estates of sweeping hills covered in grass the colour of fire, attending the Prydonian Academy. His hearts were beating faster with each passing second, with each memory of Gallifrey.

He missed it. He missed it every day.

He'd fled, escaped the boring, static clutches of the Time Lords to explore time and space with his granddaughter Susan. He'd taken to the stars, and he'd never looked back until he was forced to, time and time again. The Time Lords had separated him from his companions so often, had roped him into working with them. They'd erased the memories of his companions Jamie and Zoe, had driven Romana to stay in E-Space, had arranged for Peri's death.

So much of what they had done had been evil, so much of it plainly wrong. But, for better or worse, they had been his people.

They were gone now. He'd sealed them in the depths of the Time War twice, been forced by circumstance and necessity to cast Rassilon back into hell. He'd prevented them from bringing about the end of time. He'd done that, all of that, because he'd seen no other way. Because he'd had to, not only to save himself but the whole of the universe. Every universe, actually, a few times over each.

None of it could change the fact that his home was gone and all he wanted was to go back there.

He'd been content to travel with humans and other non-Time Lords for centuries upon centuries now, but he had never quite managed to connect with them the way he would have been able to with a Time Lord. They'd strengthened him, made him a better person, but he was, in essence, alone.

Now here was this… this _creature_. This beast, which had hijacked his TARDIS and was trying to take him back to his home. A home that was long since gone.

He was torn, as he bolted through the ship, trying to find Sophie. The simple truth was that the Protocol was going to destroy the TARDIS, and the Doctor and Sophie along with it, if he didn't stop it soon. That much was basic fact. Far more terrifying, however, was what might happen; the Time Lock broken, Gallifrey and the Time Lords and the Daleks once again set loose on the galaxy at large.

The last great Time War had been fought unnoticed by the lower races of the galaxy. Humans, Raxacoricofallapatorians, Graske, even the Sontarans. None of them had even realised what was happening, or at least hadn't realised its truly magnificent, apocalyptic extent. This time, though, the Doctor knew they would. The Eternals had fled this plane of existence, and their steadying hand would not be able to stay even the most base of horrors.

He decided that if he had to, he'd destroy the TARDIS.

His hearts broke at the thought of Sophie being killed. One life for the entire universe, he knew, was worth it; that kind of choice wasn't really a choice at all. In many of his other lifetimes, he wouldn't have even hesitated. He would have sacrificed his life without a second thought, would have spared some pity for his companions. In others, he would have let the universe burn a billion times over just to keep his friends safe.

This time, he knew, he had to somehow manage to save both the universe and Sophie. She'd been through so many things in her short life, lost so much. He wouldn't allow her to lose anything else.

His reverie was broken by a scream echoing down the TARDIS corridors. As it died away, he realised that it was Sophie, screaming in agony.

"Sophie?" he called. His throat was dry, his hearts still. What was happening to her?

The twilit corridors, however, remained deathly silent. The Protocol, he realised, was probably messing with him, using its ability to mimic voices to imitate Sophie and then piping the sound down to where he was. For all the Doctor knew, he was miles away from Sophie, on the other side of the TARDIS.

"Sophie?" he cried again. He wasn't sure where to go from here. He'd reached an intersection in the corridor, and he was beginning to lose hope that he'd be able to find her in time.

"Doctor?" a croaking voice said in response.

He spun about, and saw Sophie gingerly feeling her way down one of the intersecting corridors towards him. Her skin was ashen, and even though her eyes were open, they stared sightlessly out at him.

What had the Protocol done?

He rushed to her. "I'm here!"

"Doctor!" she said, evidently relieved. She reached out, feeling the lapels of his long black coat. "Thank God. I can't see, Doctor. I can't see!"

The Doctor grimaced, and went for his sonic screwdriver. He quickly ran it across her staring green eyes, and then checked the readouts. "There's nothing wrong with your eyes or your optical nerves."

"Then what's happening to me?" Sophie demanded, and the Doctor heard how scared she was.

He put his screwdriver away and pulled her into a hug. She was uneasy, at first, but she put his arms around him and squeezed back. Surreptitiously, the Doctor placed a fingertip against Sophie's temple, and opened his mind.

The Time Lords, quite apart from their ability to sense time the way a human could hear sound or taste food, had been gifted by the Untempered Schism with telepathic abilities. As much as the TARDIS was a machine operated by switches and levers, it was a living entity that the Doctor touched with his mind. The translation circuit and the sonic screwdriver both operated on similar principles.

He gently nudged his way into Sophie's mind.

"What are you doing, Doctor?" she ask, tensing up in his arms.

"I'm sorry, Sophie, I really am, but the Protocol is using the TARDIS' telepathic circuits to get inside your head and alter your perceptions," the Doctor explained, and he continued to bury deeper. "If there's something you don't want me to see, just imagine a box or a treasure chest or a locked door."

"The Protocol?" Sophie asked.

"Hang on," the Doctor said, and he felt the pain and fear and anguish that Sophie had nearly been overcome by during their brief separation. The Protocol had come down on her hard, perhaps because her mind wasn't as shielded as a Time Lord's… but the Doctor had a sneaking suspicion that the Protocol had targeted her precisely because she was not a Time Lord, and it felt she had no right to be aboard the TARDIS.

The Doctor would have smiled at that. One of the lasting legacies of the Time Lords, even after their destruction, was their snobbery, their xenophobia. _Of course_ the Protocol would target Sophie.

He flooded her mind with the information about the Protocol; what is was, what it was planning to do. As he did, he felt her tense even further. He didn't know if she could understand everything he was allowing her to experience, but he had to trust that she'd be able to handle it all. Of course she'd be able to, he chastised himself.

She was his companion and he only took the best.

Nevertheless, he kept some things from her. She didn't need to know that the creature had taunted him with the voices of his past companions, didn't need to know the depths of Gallifrey's inequity. He would explain that her, one day. Maybe.

Finally, he found the areas of her mind that the Protocol had been tampering with. The visual cortex, mainly, but also the thalamus and general bodily functions. It had increased her heart rate, lowered the production of dopamine and seratonin. This thing, the Doctor realised, knew altogether too much about the human body.

Then he realised why.

There had been dozens of humans aboard the TARDIS before, and the TARDIS' banks of internal scanners had run comprehensive tests on every single one of them. He doubted that there was a single cell in Sophie's body that wasn't catalogued somewhere in the TARDIS databanks. The Protocol had access to all of that, and it was going to continue using it against them both.

He began to block off the affected sections of her mind, to strengthen them against the Protocol's telepathic assaults. A few moments later, he was done, and he released Sophie.

Stepping back, she blinked, clearly able to see again. "What did you do?" she asked.

"In effect," the Doctor explained, "I put a firewall around your mind. It was surprisingly easy to do, actually."

"Is that a compliment?" Sophie asked, laughing shakily. She was putting up a brave front, the Doctor knew, but she was obviously still deeply disturbed by what had happened.

"It is, actually," the Doctor said, grinning. "Your mind is remarkably strong, for a human's. Quite a few safeguards already in place. Maybe that's a result of the telepathic intrusions you've already suffered, like back in Newcastle, but I think it's more likely that you've always had these safeguards, that your mind is simply stronger than the average person's."

Sophie was strangely flattered. "Thank you. I think."

The Doctor smiled. "The Protocol shouldn't be able to get inside your head anymore."

"The Protocol," Sophie repeated, as though tasting the words. She seemed to be considering something. "What's the plan, Doctor? Where do we go from here?"

The Doctor was somewhat taken aback.

"We need to beat the Protocol, don't we?" Sophie asked. "Get it off the TARDIS, stop it from taking us back to your homeworld…"

She paused, blinked, and then her face fell.

"You need to destroy the TARDIS," she said, finally. She seemed resigned though, to her credit, certainly not frightened or upset. "You have to blow it up."

"No," the Doctor said, resolutely. "Absolutely not. I'll only do that as a matter of last resort but there are ways we can beat the Protocol without destroying the ship."

"How?" Sophie asked.

The Doctor glanced around the TARDIS corridors, knowing that the Protocol had access to every system on the ship, access that would only increase as the ship's power was restored.

"What's wrong?" Sophie asked, before she caught herself. "It's listening to us, isn't it?"

The Doctor nodded. "I should really do that telepathy thing more often. Helps you get the point."

Sophie's expression grew cold. "I appreciate the help, Doctor, I really do, but don't ever do that to me again. Not without asking."

The Doctor demurred. "I'm sorry, I really am."

"Yeah," Sophie said, and she smiled again. "Don't worry about it, seriously. Just ask next time, yeah?"

"Yeah," the Doctor nodded. He was about to something more, when he heard a strange noise coming from down the corridor. He frowned, but decided to let it go; a piece of machinery coming back to life as the TARDIS was powered back up again. "The Protocol is going to try and control our movements. As it gains in power, it'll start reshaping the TARDIS geography, but until then it's going to try and force us to stay in certain areas."

"How?" Sophie asked.

"Can't you feel it?" the Doctor said. "The temperature in this corridor has dropped two or three degrees just in the time we've been talking."

"It's turning the heat off," Sophie said, eyes widening.

"Soon, the temperature will drop below zero, and then it'll keep falling," the Doctor explained. "Eventually, this part of the TARDIS will be as cold as space." Sophie shivered, and it had nothing to do with the rapidly dissipating heat. "How long do we have?"

The Doctor shrugged. "The Protocol was able to take control of the TARDIS because she was weakened by the power drain. Maybe she'll be fighting it, however she can… maybe she isn't. Either way, based on how quickly this corridor's lost heat, I'd estimate we have an hour. Maybe two."

Sophie swallowed. "Okay. So what are we going to do?"

"First thing's first," the Doctor said, "you need better clothes."

Sophie blinked. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"T-shirt and jeans," the Doctor said and started down the corridor. Sophie followed as he went on. "You look great, but that's not going to do much good when the temperature change gets more, shall we say, drastic."

"Wait," Sophie said, stopping in her tracks. "We're going to the wardrobe?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yes we are."

"So I can get _changed_?" Sophie said, deadpan in disbelief. "You're kidding me, right?"

"I have my reasons," the Doctor told her, but she refused to move. He sighed. "The wardrobe is a central location. From there, we can reach the console room, the living quarters…"

"Why do we need to go to the living quarters?" Sophie asked.

The Doctor didn't say anything, merely giving her a look.

"Oh, no," Sophie said, shaking her head and planting her hands on her hips. "No, no, no, no, no. No way. No chance. We're not separating again and you are definitely not sending me to my room while you go off and fight some crazy computer program!"

The Doctor sighed. "Sophie, please. I can protect your mind for only so long. As the TARDIS is powered up, the Protocol will get stronger. It'll be able to attack you again, and it'll be worse than before. If you're in your room, you'll be safe. It might even leave you alone."

Sophie's expression grew steely. "Yeah, right."

"Please, Sophie," the Doctor said. "I need to know you'll be safe."

Her demeanour visibly softened. "Doctor, I hate to break it to you, but since I've been travelling with you I can count the moments I've been safe on one hand. I wouldn't even need the thumb."

The Doctor laughed at that. "Maybe so, but…"

"I'm not getting separated from you," Sophie insisted. "I've been saying this for ages now, but I'm not getting separated from you anymore. Think about it. In Newcastle, on New Tokyo, in Siena, on Ford XVII. Whenever we split up, I ended being attacked or captured or worse. Not again."

The Doctor sighed. "It's going to be dangerous."

"Everything's going to be dangerous as long as I'm with you, Doctor," Sophie said, smiling despite herself, "and I wouldn't have it any other way."

The Doctor froze. "I don't know what to say."

Sophie laughed. "Then shut up, and let's go find the wardrobe."

She took his hand, and began to pull him down the corridor. They only got a few steps further, though, before Sophie paused. The Doctor's hearts quickened. "What's that noise?" Sophie asked.

The Doctor had heard it a few moments ago, dismissed it as a piece of machinery starting up again. "I don't know."

"It sounds…" Sophie began, before trailing off.

It sounded like heavy breathing, but there was certainly some animalistic element to it, like a big dog. Or perhaps a wolf.

"Doctor," Sophie said.

"I know," he answered, immediately. He squeezed her hand tight, signalling to her to remain motionless. "It's behind is."

"What is?" Sophie whispered, disconcerted.

"I don't know," the Doctor said, "but when I say run, you _run_."

"Yeah," Sophie said, nodding and biting her lip. Then, as one, they slowly turned around. Sophie had to clap her free hand over her mouth to prevent herself from gasping in horror at the sight before her.

It looked like the holographic creature that had attacked them in the storage room, but much larger, far more vicious-looking. It resembled some sort warthog, hyena combination, its holographic fangs beared, its feet scuffling along the deck. It kept its head low, and moved in long, loping steps towards them, as though preparing to pounce.

"Can it hurt us?" Sophie asked.

The Doctor winced, remembering the kinetic energy the Protocol had unleashed on him in the storage room, and the electric shocks it had used to prevent him from manipulating the controls.

"Yes," the Doctor nodded. He swallowed.

The creature had stopped now, less than two metres from them.

"Sophie," the Doctor said, his voice little more than a harsh whisper, "run!"

Sophie didn't need to be told twice. Hand in hand, the Doctor and Sophie bolted down the corridor; the Doctor's long strides threatened to pull him ahead of her, but her time travelling with the Doctor had meant an awful lot of running; she pushed herself and was easily able to keep up with him.

The Protocol, meanwhile, snarled and leapt after them, its paws smacking hard against the decking as it ran.

"This way!" the Doctor shouted as they reached an intersection. They took the corner a little too fast, and Sophie slammed against the far wall. She gave a cry of pain, but the Doctor pulled her towards him just as the Protocol slammed into the wall she'd stood at moments before.

He pulled her down the corridor as the holographic creature composed itself and dashed after them.

Suddenly, they came to a stop at an enormous shaft that yawned open before them. The Protocol was right behind them now, and roared with glee; perhaps it thought it had them trapped?

"What is this?" Sophie asked the Doctor, peering into the blackness that stretched away above and below them. Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer, and her chest was heaving as she tried to bring her breathing under control. She was terrified, yes, but not hopeless as she had been when she'd been trapped alone in the TARDIS corridors, with no sign of the Doctor.

He was there, her hand was in his, and she'd be safe. She simply knew it.

"Gravity lift," the Doctor said answered, breaking into her reverie, and looked around for the controls. The Protocol was pacing back and forth further up the corridor, as though taunting them. The Doctor thought, had it been able to, the Protocol would be circling them.

"But if the power's down," Sophie said, "how are we going to get it to work?"

"The Protocol is powering up the ship," the Doctor said, "and even if it has control of the power relays, I should be able to trick them into shunting enough energy into this lift to get it operational, and lift us up to another level."

Sophie nodded, and swallowed. "Doctor, the Protocol… it's getting closer."

Sure enough, the hyena-warthog beast was drifting closer and closer with each back and forth across the corridor.

"How can it be here?" she asked. She was whispering now, and though she knew it was an utterly ridiculous notion, her instinct was to remain as quiet as possible so close to the beast. "Shouldn't it be in the console room?"

"It must be using the TARDIS' holographic projectors," the Doctor explained, whispering in return.

"Holographic projectors?" Sophie echoed. There was so much about the ship she had yet to learn, and she only wished she'd had better circumstances under which to learn it.

The creature was close to them now, close enough to make send fresh bursts of adrenalin spiking through Sophie. The Doctor was still looking for the controls, and Sophie felt how sweaty the palm of his hand was getting. He was as scared as she was, she realised with a start.

"Doctor," she said, warningly.

"I know, I know," he muttered.

The creature snarled, and Sophie looked to it. She saw it prepare to launch itself at them, its teeth bared in a frozen snarl. Without warning, it leapt at them, paws outstretched, ten centimetre-long claws extended and poised to strike.

"Doctor!" she screamed.

"Ah, forget it," he said, and without warning he wrapped Sophie in a hug and threw himself off the edge of the gravity lift.

Sophie felt air rush past her as they fell, and high above she was distantly aware of the creature leaping into the shaft and then dissolving as the Protocol disconnected the holographic projectors. Then she and the Doctor were left alone to fall, endlessly, through the blackness.


	48. The Cerberus Protocol: 5

**'The Cerberus Protocol'**

_4. Wardrobe_

* * *

><p>The Doctor had no idea what he'd been thinking; perhaps, in that crucial moment, he'd known that the creature was going to force them into the shaft anyway, or knock them over the edge. He and Sophie fell like stones, the cold air whipping past them.<p>

The Doctor, one arm still pinning Sophie to his chest, began to fumble with his other hand into his pocket. A few weeks before, his sonic screwdriver had been destroyed following a shuttle crash on Ford XVII. He'd managed to defeat the Daleks without his trusty gadget, but still he'd felt as though a part of him was missing.

Finally, his fingers found purchase around the thin, cylindrical device and he pulled it free from the pocket of his coat. He held it out, and activated it.

The screwdriver, much like the TARDIS, operated using telepathic circuits., Most of the time all he had to do was point and think. The screwdriver, using those same telepathic circuits, communicated any information it was able to obtain with its vast suite of sensors right back to him.

As he fell, his only thought was keeping Sophie alive.

The screwdriver's tip glowed, and it emitted its familiar high-pitched fluting noise, which the Doctor could barely hear over the roar of the winds around them as they fell.

"Doctor!" Sophie screamed, but he just closed his eyes and thought as hard as he could.

He knew the bottom of the shaft was rapidly coming up to meet them, that'd he only have a second more at best; then, a scant moment before they hit the ground, a burst of energy sang through the air. Blue light surrounded them. They were born aloft. Instead of falling, they were suddenly soaring.

The Doctor laughed, and let go of Sophie. He was sure, however, to keep a hold of her hand. Somehow, and he didn't know why, his anxiety at the prospect of what the Protocol was planning to do was tempered by the feeling of her hand in his.

"Oh my God!" she whooped, grinning, unable to believe the feeling of flying, unaided, through the air. "This is incredible."

The walls of the shaft were glowing blue, the same shade as the time rotor in the console room. The Doctor watched as floor after floor shot past them, and he pulled Sophie towards the edge of the lift.

Finally, the two of them were nudged past the anti-gravity envelope of the lift, and the two of them landed softly on the decking of a corridor just like the one they'd leapt from. There was, thankfully, no sign of the Protocol. Their feet touched down gently, and Sophie took a moment to recover.

The Doctor was still grinning, invigorated by their flight. Sophie, however, was recuperating from the adrenalin, and she'd realised just what the Doctor had done. She whirled on him, and threw a punch, connecting with his jaw.

The Doctor took a few stumbling steps backwards, eyes boggling.

"What was that for?" he demanded.

"For throwing me down a bottomless pit, you idiot!" Sophie hissed, and she sized up, fists clenched at her side.

The Doctor began to laugh. A few moments later, Sophie couldn't help but join in, and the last of the fear and tension that had gripped her began to die away.

"I can't believe you did that," Sophie said, and she collapsed against the nearest wall, sliding down to sit on the decking. She was suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion, emotionally, physically and mentally.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, and he sat beside her for a moment. "The Protocol was going to force us over the edge anyway. I thought it was better to go out on our own terms."

Sophie smiled. "I'd like you to ask me next time."

A distant roar echoed through the corridor towards them, and Sophie was suddenly reminded that they were far from out of the woods yet. The Protocol would be sending more beasts after them and they still needed to find warm clothes soon. The air, she was realised now, was positively freezing.

"Come on," she said, and pushed herself up. "We need to get out of here."

"Indeed," the Doctor agreed, and got to his feet. "Come on, the wardrobe is just down this way."

They continued down the corridor for a few more minutes, and by the time they reached a wide, hexagonal door, Sophie was shivering violently. The Doctor took off his coat and draped it around her shoulders, before using his sonic screwdriver to force the doors open. They stepped into a broad, cavernous chamber, twice the size again of the console room, roughly the same size and shape of the storage room they'd been in earlier.

It was, however, much more cluttered than even the storage room had been. In the centre of the enormous chamber was a slightly raised platform, ringed by a set of wireframe mannequins wearing unusual clothes, two steps above the level on which the Doctor and Sophie stood. Around the edges of the chamber were antique, freestanding wardrobes and clothes racks, all of them overflowing with garments. Sophie had been in here many times, and it awed her constantly.

She'd come aboard the TARDIS with just the bag she took each day to uni; she'd brought her laptop and her smart phone, which had spent the last few months collecting dust in her room, but not even one change of clothes, and she hadn't been back to Newcastle to collect the rest of her stuff. Why bother, she had thought, when she could go back at any time, half an hour, half a minute, after she'd left. Instead, she'd relied on the vast array of outfits in the TARDIS wardrobe.

Jeans, shirts, some surprisingly fashion-forward pieces and some stuff that quite literally belonged in the Victorian era. Ancient Roman togas, chainmail, even a leather loincloth or three. Sophie had had a lot of fun playing dress up in here, but now the situation was utterly dire.

"So what are we looking for?" Sophie asked, through chattering teeth.

"Cold weather gear," the Doctor said, seemingly unaffected by the cold despite the fact that he'd given his coat to Sophie. "Over here."

He led her around the outer ring of stand-alone wardrobes. Sophie had barely managed to explore a quarter of the wardrobe so far, and she'd never managed to find the cold weather gear. Somehow, she'd been able to find countless items of clothing that had fit her absolutely perfectly.

Finally, he reached a wardrobe and pulled open the door, withdrawing an enormous fur coat and handing it to Sophie.

"Fur, Doctor?" Sophie asked, lifting an eyebrow. She was obviously unimpressed.

The Doctor, for his part, didn't look guilty. "It's fake."

Sophie frowned. "It doesn't seem fake."

"Of course it doesn't," the Doctor said, and helped her put the coat on. "What would the point of a faux fur coat be if it didn't feel like fur? It was made for me personally by one of the Grandmasters of the Guild of Polyester Artists on Hadrivor Gold."

Sophie pursed her lips, clearly disbelieving. "Really, Doctor?"

"Yes, really," the Doctor said, and began to usher her further along the circular row of wardrobes. "Warm enough for you?"

"It'll do," Sophie agreed. "What's the plan now?"

They'd reached a space between two over-stuffed wardrobes, into which was crammed a writing desk.

"How is a raven like a writing desk, Sophie?" the Doctor asked her, as he began to root around in the desk's drawers. Sophie didn't answer. "Fine. I'll tell you how. They're not. But I have a writing desk."

"Yeah, I can see that," Sophie said. He continued going through the desk, and didn't look up at her. She folded her arms. "Doctor, what are you doing?"

"Trying to find a floor plan," the Doctor explained.

"A floor plan?" Sophie repeated. "A floor plan of what? Also, what is a writing desk even doing in the wardrobe?"

"A floor plan of the wardrobe," the Doctor explained. "And if I didn't have a writing desk in here, then where would I keep the floor plans?"

"Yeah," Sophie agreed, and stepped into place beside him. The writing desk was crammed with papers and what looked like flexible plastic sheets with writing etched into them. There were notes in English and in Gallifreyan. "What is all this stuff?"

"Receipts," the Doctor said. "I need to keep track of what I buy. Even the TARDIS can't get away from the tax man."

Sophie almost laughed. "Really?"

"No," the Doctor said, continuing to root through the desk. "They're notes. Pages from journals or diaries. Some of them actually are receipts. IOUs. Christmas cards."

"Why are they in here?" Sophie asked, fishing one of the Christmas cards the Doctor's had mentioned out of the desk. On the front was a chocolate box painting of a snowbound village. She opened it, and read it quickly. "Who's Madge Arwell? And why's it addressed to 'Caretaker'?"

"A friend of mine," the Doctor said, and held out his hand. He finally looked at Sophie, clearly unimpressed. "Give it back."

"Sorry," Sophie said, and handed it to him.

"All of the stuff in this desk," the Doctor explained, as he slotted the Christmas card back into place, "is stuff that's been left in these clothes, in the pockets and inside the lining or tucked away in hats or whatever else, when they've been put away."

"Oh," Sophie said, satisfied. "Where are all the sweets? The paperclips and stuff?"

"Paperclips are in the bottom drawer," the Doctor explained. "All the sweets are long gone."

"Why?" Sophie asked.

"I ate them," the Doctor replied.

"If all this stuff was in the clothes," Sophie said, "then how did it end up in the desk? I mean, did you go through them all?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Every now and then, the TARDIS does a clean out. Gets rid of all the junk, saves the old stuff, builds me some new stuff. A nice spring clean, really. I suppose, the last time she reorganised the wardrobe, she took all of the junk out of the pockets and put it all in this desk."

"Did the TARDIS build the desk?" Sophie asked. It really was, beneath all the paper and junk, a beautifully designed piece of furniture. It looked oak, with a dark varnish, and was intricately carved.

"No, no, no," the Doctor said. "I got this at a garage sale in Liverpool in 1981."

Sophie laughed. Finally, the Doctor pulled out a folded piece of paper, somewhat like a map. He handed it to Sophie, and gave the desk a cursory tidy. Even as he did, the hum of the TARDIS engines changed pitch.

"What's that?" Sophie asked.

"The Protocol has got enough energy to bring the engines fully online," the Doctor said, and he swallowed. "This is bad. This is very bad."

"But that means…" Sophie began.

"That it'll start trying to take us to Gallifrey in the next couple of minutes," the Doctor said, evidently deeply disturbed.

"Okay," Sophie said, and took a deep, calming breath. "What's our plan, Doctor?"

"Our what?"

"Our _plan_!" Sophie repeated, trying to keep him focused. "I need to know what we're going to do next."

The Doctor nodded. He turned back to the writing desk and brushed aside some of the junk, unfolding the floor plan and anchoring it open with a pen that had rolled free from the junk. He studied the map for a second, before turning to Sophie.

"We need to get to the secondary control room," the Doctor explained.

"All right," Sophie nodded, "so how do we get there?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I don't know. Like I've said, the TARDIS reconfigures its internal geometry from time to time, and I haven't needed to use the secondary control room for a few hundred years now…"

That statement momentarily disconcerted Sophie. Intellectually, she knew that the Doctor was over a thousand years old, but he honestly looked like a human man, in his mid-thirties at the oldest. She was lured, more often than not, into forgetting that he was a Time Lord, more ancient than she could understand.

"The wardrobe's meant to be close by, though," the Doctor said. "There are a few entrances, spaced throughout the ship. One near the living quarters, one near the primary control room, one near the swimming pool, one near the library and one near the secondary control room."

Sophie blinked. "The swimming pool?"

The Doctor nodded. "I really should have given you a more extensive tour."

"Would have been nice, considering," Sophie agreed, waving a hand around to indicate their surroundings. The Doctor understood, however, that the gesture was intended to encompass their situation itself. "Which entrance did we come through?"

"The library," the Doctor told her. He placed one finger on the floor plan of the wardrobe, "here."

"And we're looking for the secondary control room exit?"

The Doctor nodded. "Once we get there, we need to find a way to hack into the TARDIS control systems. The Protocol will have bottled up her Matrix, will be keeping her in the distant, darkest corner of the ship's circuitry. We need to find a way to let her out. Once she's free, the Protocol will be absolutely no match for her."

"How come?" Sophie asked.

"The TARDIS has had over a thousand years of experience," the Doctor explained. "She knows her circuits inside and out. The Protocol has probably been given all the necessary data, all of the plans and blueprints the Time Lords would have used when they initially built her, but the TARDIS has changed so much since I first left Gallifrey."

Sophie paused. A question that had long simmered in her mind finally bubbled up to the surface. "Why did you leave Gallifrey?"

"Long story," the Doctor said, not missing a beat as he went on "The only problem is that the Protocol would anticipate that this would be my plan."

"And it can hear us, surely," Sophie said, remembering from their brief telepathic communication just how deeply the Protocol had infiltrated the TARDIS' systems.

"Oh, yes," the Doctor nodded, "it's probably been listening to everything we've been saying."

"So what are we going to do?" Sophie whispered, suddenly conscious of being overheard.

"No point whispering," the Doctor told her, not even bothering to lower his voice. "The TARDIS' internal security systems are powerful enough to pick up a mouse skittering about in the lower decks. It'll be able to hear you whispering."

Sophie nodded, and swallowed. "So if the Protocol has infiltrated the TARDIS' systems, then what? We need, well, something that it hasn't infiltrated to establish a connection. A way to access the TARDIS Matrix that the Protocol hasn't gotten its hands on. So to speak."

The Doctor looked up, grinning. "Oh, Sophie Freeman, you are brilliant!"

"Obviously," she said, sticking her tongue out at him. She shivered, brought back to their dire circumstances by the cold that suffused the air. "We need to hurry, Doctor, the temperature must getting close to freezing now."

"Right you are," the Doctor agreed. "The trouble is, we need to find a computer that the Protocol can't access. As long as it's been linked to the TARDIS' systems, then every computer aboard will have been infected."

"Not every computer," Sophie said, remembering the laptop in her bag. "When I first came aboard the TARDIS, I had my uni bag with me. Books, my phone, and my laptop."

"Perfect!" the Doctor said.

"The laptop?" Sophie asked, hopeful.

The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, no. It's been in your bag for weeks now, surely, and if it has then its battery will be dead. If you've charged it aboard the TARDIS, her telepathic circuits will have networked with it, and if that's the case, then the Protocol will be able to get into it."

"Then what?" she asked, bewildered.

"Your phone!" the Doctor crowed. He turned back to the map, and quickly found the exit leading to the living quarters section. "You have a smartphone, right?"

"Yeah," Sophie nodded. "An iPhone 3."

"Oh, wait until the seven comes out," the Doctor said, as though momentarily awed by his memory of the product. "It'll blow your mind."

"That's great," Sophie said, annoyed that she still had to keep him on focus. "But what's the difference? That'll be out of battery, too. I haven't used it since the morning I came on board."

For a brief second, Sophie remembered that morning. She'd met the Doctor in a bubble universe created around her consciousness and memories, and together they'd defeated the creature that had created that universe, a member of the mysterious Trickster's Brigade. Then she'd woken up the next morning, and everything had gone back to normal. Another week had passed before the Doctor had returned to invite her aboard the TARDIS, and in that time she'd become almost certain that the entire thing had been a dream.

"Yes," the Doctor nodded, "but the sonic screwdriver will be able to shunt enough energy from its own power cells into the phone to get it working."

"And then?"

"And then we get the phone to the secondary control room, and use it to access the TARDIS' systems. I'll be able to find her, wherever the Protocol's left her. Only one problem," the Doctor said.

Sophie sighed. "Oh?"

"It'll probably destroy your phone," the Doctor told her, blanching apologetically.

Sophie almost laughed. "You think I care about the phone? Stopping the Protocol has to be our number one priority. Besides, if this doesn't work…" she trailed off, remembering the information the Doctor had imparted upon her earlier.

"If this doesn't work," the Doctor repeated, finishing off with "then we'll have to destroy the TARDIS."

Sophie nodded. "I know. I don't… no, that's not true."

"What isn't?"

"I was about to say that I wouldn't mind if we had to do that," Sophie answered. "A few months ago, before I met you, I honestly don't think I would have. Now, though? Now I've actually started living my life, not just enduring it, and I want to hold onto that with everything I've got. I think I owe myself that. That's why this has to work. If it doesn't, we'll destroy the TARDIS. We have to, I know that, and I understand it and I'm peace with it. I just don't… _want_ to destroy it. I don't want to die. You know?"

The Doctor gave her a small smile. "Yeah. I know."

She smiled back; it wasn't a smile of happiness or mirth, but one of understanding. She knew, in that moment, that they were kindred spirits, two people who understood each other entirely. Whatever difficulties they'd faced, whatever they themselves might want, they knew their responsibility and they knew their duty, to themselves, to each other and to the universe itself.

"We should get going," the Doctor said, and Sophie agreed. He took her hand, and began to lead her through the darkened wardrobe. Sophie blinked, realising that the lights had grown steadily dimmer.

"Is it just me…" she began, but the Doctor cut her off.

"No, it's definitely darker in here," he agreed. They continued towards the centre of the wardrobe, planning to cut across the centre towards the exit that led to the living quarters.

They were almost at the raised platform in the centre when Sophie heard movement.

"What is that?" she asked.

She remembered that a few wireframe mannequins, showing off a few rather outlandish outfits, ringed the centre platform. Other than that, it was mostly bare, though it did display a rather beautiful abstract mosaic. The wardrobe, now, was pitch black and freezing cold. Only the mosaic glowed gently, leaving the Doctor and Sophie standing in a rather dim twilight.

"I don't know," the Doctor said, and frowned.

There was a scraping against the deck, and Sophie gasped, spinning about. She froze, staring out into the darkness.

"Get down!" the Doctor roared, before a closed umbrella swiped towards Sophie. She ducked beneath it, and the Doctor pulled her back as it came after her again.

Sophie stepped beside him, heart beating in her chest, as the Doctor lifted up his sonic screwdriver and activated it. High above, the lights of the wardrobe were suddenly brightened. The Doctor and Sophie found themselves surrounded by those same mannequins. The closest was shorter than the others, and featured an off-white safari jacket, red paisley scarf and a pullover complete with a red question mark motif. It wielded an umbrella, a Panama hat worn jauntily atop its head.

Its elbows bent, and it moved in a jerky, marionette-like manner.

"I knew the TARDIS' penchant for nostalgia would come back to bite me," the Doctor muttered darkly.

"What are these things?" Sophie asked, eyes wide.

"Mannequins," the Doctor explained, stating the obvious. "Wearing some of my favourite clothes."

Sophie was horrified. "But why?"

"I don't really know," the Doctor answered. "Get down!"

The mannequin wearing the Panama hat lunged again, but this time its attack was only a feint. Another, wearing a long brown coat and an incredibly long multicoloured scarf slipped around it; it lashed out, striking for Sophie, but she managed to dodge, only to find herself right in front of a mannequin dressed like a cricketer in a bone-white coat. It even wielded a cricket bat; a cricket bat that was coming right for her face.

She ducked under the bat, and turned to see the Doctor menaced by another short mannequin, this one wearing a fur coat not unlike Sophie's and baggy, checked trousers, as well as a significantly taller mannequin wearing a garish coat of brilliant, clashing colours and horrific yellow trousers.

He was directing his screwdriver at them, dodging blows from their wire hands, but the sonic was having no effect.

"Watch out, Doctor!" she yelled, as a mannequin wearing a leather jacket lunged for him. He didn't move in time, and was knocked to the wardrobe floor.

Before she could help him, however, the umbrella-wielding mannequin was upon her again. She sidestepped one riposte in the nick of time, carried only by the adrenalin coursing through her. She grabbed the umbrella, and wrenched it free of the mannequin's hand. She hit it over the head, and it toppled, motionless, to the ground.

The cricket bat-carrying mannequin leapt at her again, but this time she parried its attack with the umbrella and it was caught off guard. She slipped past it, and battered away the mannequin in the multicoloured coat and its baggy-trousered friend. The Doctor was freed from their assault for a moment, and Sophie helped him to his feet. He looked bloodied, but was clearly unbent.

"Thanks," he said, wiping blood away from his chin.

"Don't mention it," Sophie said, tone clipped.

The mannequin with the overly long scarf was coming at them now. The Doctor grabbed the scarf, though, and with a wrenching twist he pulled it free of the mannequin's neck; the momentum of that motion brought the thing spinning around and dumped it, unceremoniously, at their feet.

Its place was taken by two of its fellows a moment later.

"God, how many of them are there?" Sophie demanded.

"Far too many," the Doctor answered, as the mannequin with the cricket bat came at them again. "I must have a talk to the TARDIS about things like this…"

The Doctor caught the mannequin's hands before it could bring the bat crashing down upon them, and Sophie went around to the side, thrusting the umbrella into its chest. She noticed that a stalk of celery was pinned to the lapel of its jacket. The mannequin collapsed, but the leather jacket-wearing mannequin and the mannequin in baggy trousers were renewing their assault.

The Doctor pulled the cricket bat from the hand of the felled mannequin and swung at the attackers, knocking Leather Jacket aside.

Sophie joined his attack, managing to trip up Baggy Trousers. More mannequins were massing about them now; the Doctor saw that the way to the exit was clear now, but would remain so for only a few moments. Even the mannequins they'd knocked down were starting to get back up.

"Come on!" the Doctor said, his free hand snaking out to grab Sophie's.

They began to run, together, across the wardrobe floor, but the mannequins followed, surprisingly swift. The chamber began to darken again, and before they were halfway towards the exit, they were plunged into inky blackness.

They heard movement. Rustling fabric.

"What's happening?" Sophie asked, as the Doctor came to a stop.

"I used the sonic screwdriver to activate the lights and lock the Protocol out of the system," the Doctor explained. "It must have found a way around the firewall."

"How did it do that thing with the mannequins?" Sophie asked.

"I have no idea," he answered. "It's more powerful than I thought."

They were still moving towards the door, but more slowly than they had been; in the darkness pressing in upon then, they could hear movement. The mannequins were circling.

"They can't really hurt us, can they?" Sophie asked. "I mean, they just can't, right? They're only wireframe mannequins."

"And that thing before was only a hologram," the Doctor reminded her. "If the Protocol can animate them, maybe it's electrified them. Maybe they'll just suffocate us."

"Yeah," Sophie said, her voice hollow and reedy. "I'm not having fun, Doctor."

"Neither am I," he assured her, and squeezed her hand.

That disturbed Sophie more than anything else. Throughout their adventures, even in the direst of circumstances, with the exception of their encounter with the Daleks on Ford XVII, the Doctor had always seemed to have, quite a lot of fun, at least on some level. He enjoyed their adventures, even as he mourned those that had fallen. His fear now, though, was palpable.

She returned the hand squeeze.

"This is my home, Sophie," the Doctor explained. "I thought, of all the places in the universe, that I'd be safe here. To know that there was this Protocol, this creature, lurking about, waiting for a chance to strike…"

"I understand, Doctor," Sophie said. She'd never really had a home, not since her parents had died; just places she'd lived. The TARDIS, though, had rapidly filled that void. As much as anywhere else she'd ever lived, perhaps far more so, the TARDIS was her home.

"I know," the Doctor said, and suddenly froze. "Get down!"

He took her by the shoulders and threw her to the ground, as a pair of wireframe hands plunged towards her, gripping the air where her neck had been a moment before.

Swinging his cricket bat, the Doctor connected with the head of the attacking mannequin, decapitating it. That didn't stop the mannequin, however, from advancing.

The lights came back on.

They were utterly surrounded by the mannequins now, and though none of them were armed, they were pressing in around the Doctor and Sophie.

Helping his companion to her feet, the Doctor saw that she'd dropped the umbrella. "Stay behind me," he told her, and he began to lash out with the bat, swinging it back and forth. He managed to clear a path through the mannequins, and with a gentle shove, he pushed Sophie through it. She began to run, as the Doctor continued to fight off the mannequins.

She was almost to the door when her foot caught something. She fell, seeing that the mannequin with the long scarf had strung it between two wardrobes. She landed hard, with her ankle at an unnatural angle.

She cried with the pain. The mannequin began to lumber towards her.

The Doctor suddenly leapt between her and the mannequin, and with a well-time swing of the cricket bat managed to decapitate it, too. Another swing sent it toppling to the ground.

He turned back to Sophie, and helped her up.

"I think I sprained my ankle," she said, groaning.

"Come on," the Doctor said, and helped her hobble towards the door, now only a few metres away. "We're almost there."

The mannequins were regrouping once again. Finally, they'd reached the door, and the Doctor tossed away his cricket bat, retrieving the sonic screwdriver from the pocket of his coat. Aiming it at the door, he tripped the circuits and it slid open.

Sophie glanced over his shoulder, and saw the mannequin with the safari jacket had found the umbrella she'd dropped and was lunging towards them, umbrella pointed directly for them.

"Doctor!" Sophie cried.

The Doctor spun. The umbrella struck him, right in the torso. The Doctor gave a cry as the pointed end of the umbrella pierced his coat, and ploughed into his body.


	49. The Cerberus Protocol: 6

**'The Cerberus Protocol'**

_6. Zero Room_

* * *

><p>"No!" Sophie shouted, as the Doctor stumbled back. Blood was flowing freely from his wound, as his fingers curled around it. His eyes were wide with surprise.<p>

Sophie, barely able to stand on her injured leg, grabbed him with both hands and pulled him back towards the door. Together, they fell over the threshold, out of the wardrobe, and the door slid shut behind them, sealing the attacking mannequins away.

"Doctor!" Sophie cried, propping his head up on her lap. "Oh, God, Doctor!"

"It's fine," the Doctor said, though he sounded pained. "My ribs deflected the…"

His words trailed off as he suddenly seized with agony, his eyes rolling back.

"Doctor!" she shouted.

He was getting pale. "Sophie," he said, a moment later, as he seemed to recover, "I need you to know something."

"Yeah, Doctor?" she asked. She could barely think with the fear that now dominated her mind; the Protocol had been bad enough, but the possibility of losing the Doctor...

"When I'm hurt," he explained, "when I'm going to die, something happens to me."

"Regeneration," Sophie supplied, nodding. She knew something of the process, that it enabled the Doctor to recover from mortal injuries, but she didn't know what it involved.

He nodded. "It doesn't just heal me, Sophie. It changes me. Every cell of my body is re-written, my entire being is fundamentally changed…"

Sophie shook her head. "You don't need to worry about that, Doctor."

"No," he agreed, "but you do."

"No!" she insisted. "You're not regenerating. You're going to be fine. Your ribs deflected the attack, right?"

"I think I was wrong," the Doctor said, simply.

"No, no, no," Sophie said, shaking her head. Tears were welling up in the corners of her eyes. "You'll be okay. Come on!"

"Maybe," the Doctor said, weakly. He shut his eyes, resting his head against her lap for a moment.

Sophie reached under his arms, and began to pull him towards the wall. She rested him against it. "I don't have a bandage," she told him, "I can't stop the bleeding."

"I can," the Doctor said.

"You're not going to regenerate," Sophie insisted, somewhat more forcefully than she had meant to. Tears were now spilling uninhibited down her cheeks.

"No," the Doctor agreed. "It doesn't seem like I am."

"What do you mean?" Sophie barked, her heart stopping her chest. If he was wounded this badly and he wasn't regenerating, what could that mean? That he was dying? She couldn't let that happen. When he didn't answer, she shouted: "What do you _mean_, Doctor?"

"I'm an old man, Sophie," he said, his voice obviously pained. He was struggling to speak, and she wondered what damage the umbrella had done. Even in the gloom, she could see the blood spreading from the wound; feel the dampness of his coat. "It's been getting harder for me, this regeneration thing."

"There has to be something we can do," Sophie insisted. She remembered the small medical bay located near the control room. She'd taken a wounded man there after a Dalek attack a few weeks before. "What about the sickbay?"

The Doctor shook his head. "With the Protocol in control of her systems, even the TARDIS' medical technology won't be able to heal me."

"Oh, come on, Doctor!" Sophie howled. "You can't just give in. Not after all this."

The Doctor shut his eyes, and rested his head against the wall. "There is one option. The Zero Room."

Sophie blinked, the tears abruptly stopping. There was, at long last, hope and if the Doctor had taught her anything, he'd taught her that hope mattered. Hope was the most important thing. "The what?"

"The Zero Room," he repeated. "It's a chamber, sealed off from the rest of the universe. It's designed to aid recovery. Even the Protocol won't be able to corrupt it."

"Where is it?"

The Doctor shook his head. "To be honest, I don't know. It could be anywhere."

"And I still need to get my phone and get you to the secondary control room," Sophie added, brushing away the last of the tears. She pushed her fear out of her mind, remembering the mental barriers the Doctor had helped her to erect. If she was anything, now, she was a professional companion, and that meant that she had to approach her situation with professionalism.

When given a problem, she thought, it's my job to find a way to solve it and then to actually solve it.

"You'll be going to the control room alone," the Doctor said, sadly. "I'm sorry, Sophie, I wish I could be of more help, but it has to be you."

Sophie sucked in a breath. "Fine."

The Doctor tried to haul himself up, but he slipped. Sophie caught him, helping him to stay upright. He shut his eyes, adjusting to the pain. He was pale, losing blood fast. "This way," he said, pointing down the corridor. "It's this way."

Slowly but surely, they walked in the direction the Doctor had indicated. The sound of the TARDIS engines was growing louder and louder, and Sophie's heart was quickening its pace. They were running out of time.

After a few minutes, they reached a hexagonal lobby, with two more exits leading away into the bowels of the TARDIS. There was, however, an enormous set of double doors against the far wall. Unlike the usual gold and bronze and burnished orange colours of the TARDIS bulkheads, these doors were a strange, pearlescent white that glowed faintly.

"I've got it from here," the Doctor said, and slipped out of Sophie's arms, struggling towards the doors. He got a few steps before his legs failed him.

"Oh, don't be an idiot," she said, helping him up again. "We're in this together, even if you are about to quit on me."

She injected a note of humour into her tone, but it wasn't enough to mask the fear and disappointment. It wasn't his fault, she knew, but the Doctor _was_ abandoning her, leaving her to face the Protocol alone.

"Only I can open the Zero Room doors," the Doctor said, "and you won't be able to come inside."

"Wouldn't want to anyway," Sophie replied, trying to keep her spirits up. "I've got stuff to do, remember. But, Doctor, what about my ankle? I can't run on this."

"I'll do my best to keep the Protocol busy," the Doctor said, a note of danger in his voice. "You just get your phone and get to the secondary control room."

Sophie nodded. "All right."

The Doctor stepped away from her again, leaning against the Zero Room doors. They seemed to pulse beneath him, ever so slightly. He handed her his sonic screwdriver. "Use this to power up your phone. Take it to the control room, and find the input link."

"What does that look like?" she asked.

"Like an iPod dock, obviously," he said, as though the question was ridiculous. "Plug your phone in, and the Matrix will do the rest."

Sophie suppressed her annoyance at his flippancy. "And what about the sonic screwdriver? How do I use that?"

"Psychic circuitry," the Doctor explained. "Usually it's keyed exclusively into my neurochemistry, but all you need to do is point it at your phone and activate it. It'll know what you want it to do."

Sophie nodded, and clutched the sonic screwdriver in both hands. She stared at it.

"Sophie," the Doctor said, quietly. "Look at me."

She tore her eyes from the screwdriver, and met the Doctor's piercing gaze.

"You can do this, Sophie," he told her, and for the first time she realised that she was shivering, a reflex that had nothing to do with the cold. "I know you can do this. You faced the Trickster's Brigade alone. You survived the Daleks alone. You helped save New Tokyo and Siena. This Protocol? It's nothing. Nothing compared to you."

The Doctor wasn't smiling. He wasn't being encouraging, wasn't trying to buoy her spirits. He was simply being honest.

And that's what made Sophie smile, wide and genuine, tears glittering in her eyes.

"All right, Doctor," she said, and nodded towards the Zero Room. "Good luck."

"I'd wish you luck in return," the Doctor said, still not smiling, "but I don't think you'll need it."

With that, the Doctor finally pressed his hand against the doors. They didn't open; rather, the Doctor pressed against them and, like a semi-permeable membrane, the doors began to stretch inwards beneath his touch. As though walking through honey, the Doctor slowly slipped _through_ the doors in a literal sense, and disappeared into the Zero Room.

Leaving Sophie alone in the corridor.

* * *

><p>Sophie dragged herself towards her room, trusting her instincts. She kept one hand on the wall, using it to keep herself upright and moving. The pain in her ankle was a dull, throbbing ache, but she still couldn't put her full weight on it.<p>

The TARDIS didn't get colder and the lights stayed constant, but the engines changed pitch again. The entire ship shook around her, and warning lights flared to life along the corridor an instant later.

The deck bucked beneath her, throwing her to her knees, but she kept going, pulling herself along the corridor.

She didn't really know where she was going, simply trusting her innate sense of direction. Fighting her way back up to her feet, she gritted her teeth against the pain in her ankle and pushed on.

The TARDIS didn't stop its shaking, though, and the going was tough. Whatever the Protocol was doing to the ship, she was lucky that it wasn't just falling apart around her.

"Sophie," a voice spoke suddenly.

Instantly, the TARDIS stopped shaking and the lights went off, plunging the corridor into darkness. Sophie straightened, whipping her head about. The voice was distant but clear and remarkably familiar.

"Sophie," it repeated.

She recognised that cadence. It was the Doctor's voice.

"Shut up," she said into the darkness. There was no response, so she decided to push on. "I know you're not the Doctor. I know you're using his voice, piping it through the ship's intercom or something."

A holographic image coalesced in the corridor, scattering thin blue light through the darkness. The Doctor was watching Sophie closely, his eyes narrowed. The semi-opaque visage of her friend stared at her imperiously.

"You're going to fail," the Protocol's projection said.

Sophie almost laughed at the transparent attempt to distract her. "Do you really think this is going to work on me?"

The hologram at least had the decency to blink as though in surprise, though the Protocol said nothing.

"I know what you are," Sophie said, squaring her shoulders. "You're a bully. Sure, you're just a few lines of Time Lord code but this whole thing, everything you've done, has been an attempt to scare the Doctor. To hurt him. You're trying to take the ship back to Gallifrey, but the fact that you haven't yet should tell you that you can't! So why are you still trying?"

The Protocol didn't answer.

"Because you don't know what else to do!" Sophie roared in answer to her own question. "If you could, I know you'd try and get inside my head like you did before but you can't. If you could, you would drive me to distraction by telling me how helpless I am, how hopeless and weak, but guess what? I have faced down the Daleks. I have seen my entire world disappear from under me. A few months ago, what you're trying to do might have had some effect but now? Now I know that am Sophie Freeman and you're nothing."

The image of the Doctor morphed into a hideous caricature of her friends face and lunged towards her, hands out-stretched.

But Sophie was already running as fast as her injured ankle could carry her.

The hologram slammed against the wall of the TARDIS corridor and dissipated. The sounds of the engines picked up immediately, and the lights returned to normal. The roaring alarms came back and the TARDIS bucked once more, throwing Sophie to her knees.

Red waves of agony sang through her body, but she ignored it. Gritting her teeth, she pushed herself up. Her ankle was getting numb, and she realised with a start that she might be going into shock.

In the corridor behind her, she heard an animalistic roar.

Memories of the holographic creature that had chased her and the Doctor before they'd reached the wardrobe only a few minutes before came rushing back.

Not daring to look behind her, Sophie continued to pull her way down the corridor as quickly as she could managed. She reached an intersection, and took a left; a pair of holographic entities, both them bizarre alien boar-wolf-tiger monsters, leapt right past her, as though they had just been about to pounce when she'd turned the corner.

They both dissipated into nothingness, only to reform a second later. They bared their teeth, both of them staring directly at Sophie.

She swallowed.

The Doctor had mentioned before that the holograms might be electrified or something. To her surprise, though, she wasn't afraid. Indeed, despite her situation, she was smiling, Suddenly it all made sense. Everything the Protocol had done.

"You can't hurt me," she announced to the creatures. They continued to growl menacingly, but she ignored them. "Oh my God, how did I not see it before? You can't hurt me. Not physically, at least. You've been using tricks and distractions to keep us off-balance. You got inside my head, made me see things and feel things, but that was telepathic trickery. You animated those mannequins, but you just got lucky that one of them had an umbrella. You've been running around us around in circles, and we've been letting you. He's been letting you. What exactly did you say to the Doctor up in the control room, huh? What did you scare him with? Just that nonsense about Gallifrey? I bet you can't even get the ship anywhere near it."

The monsters vanished, replaced by the familiar holographic image of the Doctor.

"There is a Time Lock," the Protocol said, and to Sophie's ears it sounded defeated. "The ship cannot reach Gallifrey."

"Okay," Sophie said, nodding, "then why don't you just… stop? Shut down the whole thing? You can go back in your box and leave us be."

"That is not in my programming," the Protocol answered.

"Was animating mannequins?" Sophie asked pointedly.

"My programming allows me to take any and all measures necessary to detain criminal entities," the Protocol explained, "or to remove any alien detritus from the interior of the capsule."

Sophie blanched. "You mean me. I'm the alien detritus."

"Yes," the Protocol intoned.

She frowned. "Okay, fine, so I'm alien detritus. Why are you talking to me, then? Why haven't you hurled me into the Time Vortex or something?"

The Protocol was silent.

And then it dawned on her. "Oh my God. You can't! You can't even do that! You're useless, aren't you?"

The Protocol seemed incensed when it spoke. "The control interfaces of this capsule have been modified and changed so many times. There are systems that are off-limits."

Sophie snorted. "Yeah, whatever. Excuses, excuses. So what's the plan, then? If you can't reach Gallifrey and your programming won't give you up…" she trailed off when she realised she could answer her own question. "You're going to destroy the TARDIS."

The Protocol said "Yes."

Sophie shivered. "But what good would that do? You'd just destroy yourself along with the Doctor and me!"

"Yes," the Protocol repeated.

"But the destruction of a TARDIS…" Sophie said, thinking back to everything the Doctor had told her about his miraculous, endangered time machine. "Wouldn't that, like, punch a hole in the universe? Wouldn't that destroy a lot more than just the lot of us?"

The Protocol sounded almost gleeful when it said "Yes."

"Oh my God," Sophie said again. "Destroying the TARDIS would break the Time Lock around Gallifrey, wouldn't it?"

"Yes," the Protocol said, one last time.

"You're insane! The Doctor told me what would happen if the Time Lock was broken. You'll destroy the entire universe!"

"I will fulfil my programming," the Protocol intoned. "There is nothing you can do to prevent the outcome. I have distracted you for long enough."

And in that moment, Sophie's heart broke. Because, she realised, she had been right. The Protocol could affect the ship's systems, could use its power to animate the mannequins in the wardrobe, could use its telepathic circuits to invade her mind, but its number one weapon had always been illusion and distraction.

She'd played right into its hands.

"Oh, screw you," she said, and stuck her middle finger up at the holographic Doctor before her. "I'm not giving up so easily."

"You have no choice."

"Of course I do," Sophie said, limping away down the corridor. Her whole body was hurting now, the pain radiating from her ankle threatening to drown her.

The Protocol followed her, trying to talk to her, but she ignored it. Instead she hummed a song to herself, blocking out the incessant drone of the mad computer program's holographic avatar. She kept her head down and her attention forward.

After what seemed like an eternity, she reached the ring corridor that led to the bedrooms. Her door was the first on the left. The Protocol disappeared from behind her, and reformed standing directly in front of her.

"Stop this," it told her, doing its best to sound authoritative.

"Go away," she moaned, and leant against the doorway. "Seriously, just leave me alone. I'm in enough pain without having you natter on."

"It is pointless. You cannot win."

Sophie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever."

She pushed on, stepping right through the holographic image before her. Her skin seemed to tingle, but she wasn't electrocuted. Its matrix disrupted, the avatar vanished. Sophie reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. Remembering what he had told her, she pointed it at the door and thought the word "open".

Sure enough, with sparking actuators and a reluctant groan, the door to her bedroom slid open.

The room was very familiar to her by now, but she most of her time in here had been spent fast asleep. Running away from Daleks and Vrigillians and whatever else had a singular way of making one tired.

An antique wooden four-poster bed dominated one half of the small chamber. A pair of mismatched bedside tables, one that looked like it had come from IKEA and the other made of a beautiful black rock-like substance, an exquisitely crafted chest of drawers and an ultramodern desk, complete with a computer terminal that linked into the TARDIS' main systems, rounded out the complement of furniture.

The walls were the familiar burnished bronze, gold and orange that matched the rest of the TARDIS interior's colour scheme, including the familiar roundels. Sophie went to her bed and was happy to lower herself onto it. With her weight off the injury, the pain in her ankle subsided for a second. She opened the drawer in the IKEA bedside table, and found the bag she'd first brought aboard the TARDIS.

Ignoring the books for university, she fished out her mobile.

The iPhone 3 was one of the few luxuries she'd afforded herself back in Newcastle, but since she'd been travelling with the Doctor she'd had no use for it. Its battery was dead. Pointing the screwdriver at the phone, she activated the Doctor's signature device.

Immediately, the silver apple logo appeared on the black screen.

Sophie grinned.

She pulled herself off the bed, gingerly stepping on her injured ankle, and made for the door. Before the reached it, the Protocol reappeared. Once again, it wore a holographic depiction of the Doctor's body.

"What are you doing?" it demanded.

"What does it look like?" Sophie asked. "I'm going to save the day."


	50. The Cerberus Protocol: 7

**'The Cerberus Protocol'**

_7. Secondary Control Room_

* * *

><p>The Zero Room was a null space. Same in its pearlescent white confines, the Doctor was safe from the intrusions of the universe. Space, time, matter and energy were meaningless inside those four walls, and he could exist separate and apart from all of it.<p>

The Doctor didn't know how much time had passed since he'd entered the Zero Room. It could have been a couple of seconds, it could have been a hundred years; no time passed him by, and nothing seemed to change, but there was something at the back of his mind.

Something that wouldn't let him slip into the peaceful serenity of his immediate surroundings.

Strange, though. In this place, outside of time and space, his immediate surroundings were all that existed and even that existence was hazy. He could have spent the next million years trying to find his way to the other side of the chamber, and there'd be no guarantee that he'd ever get there.

Memory and sensation fled from him.

He floated, unaided and uncaring, from one extreme of nothing to the other. He was supremely comfortable and utterly disconcerted all at once.

There was something there, at the edge of his perception. A half-remembered idea. Maybe a name. Emotions flared as his lips worked to frame the thought that flickered through his mind.

Something was tugging at him, but he couldn't bring himself to identify it.

He was so old, now. He'd lived so many lives, died and been reborn so many times, that an umbrella in his stomach should have been nothing. The weight of his failure, the sadness that suffused him at the thought of having let her down again, was enough to crush him.

He was a foolish old man, stupidly sentimental. Why did he keep those outfits out for all to see? Why did he celebrate the distant past when there was still so much more to do? Bullets, radiation, poison, a fall, a blow to the head. Endings noble and ignoble in equal measure, but endings all the same. He should have put the past behind him; he should have kept to the present.

Funny, he thought to himself, how being separate from reality gave him such a clear view of it.

This whole thing, all of it, had been his fault. He'd fallen into despair the second the TARDIS had struck the null point. He'd run off, willy-nilly, to find the power source that would bring the TARDIS back online. He'd let the Protocol distract him, first with the voices of his old friends and then with her cries for help. He could have ended it all then and there, but he'd gone off to find her.

Gone off to save her, and in so doing doomed them both. Silly old Doctor.

"Sophie," he said to himself, and the word bounced off the almost-walls and the never-floors, and echoed endlessly in the endlessness only to reach him once more. Old and alone and floating in nothingness.

Time had passed, he knew. It could have been a minute. It could have been months.

It didn't matter. Something was going to happen, something terrible; it may have already happened, it may have been happening even as he existed there, in that place of non-existence, halfway between two ends of nothingness. Every fibre of his being, each of his time-attuned senses, whispered warnings to him over and over again.

Worse still, he knew that this situation was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Something truly disastrous was lurking there, in the not-too-distant future, and the Doctor was going to key part of the coming catastrophe. Either was going to prevent it, or he was going to cause it.

For a while, or for the briefest moment, he considered what was happening and what all of it meant.

He remembered now, with the startling clarity only absolute separation could provide, what was happening and what he had to do. He had to find Sophie. He had to stop the Protocol. He had to save the universe.

"Sophie," he repeated, and in a century, in a minute, he found the door to the Zero Room. "I'm coming."

* * *

><p>"Doctor," Sophie said to herself. She could have sworn that she'd heard his voice echoing in her mind, but she was sure that it wasn't the Protocol playing its usual games.<p>

She looked around, trying to determine where the voice had come from. She was alone, however, and the only sounds she could hear were the humming of the TARDIS engines and the distant rumble of the ship striking something. Their voyage through the Vortex towards the Time Lock surrounding Gallifrey's place in history had smoothed out considerably.

That wasn't good at all.

Despite her injured ankle, she'd managed to pull herself out of the ring corridor that housed the passenger's living quarters. Finally, she reached the intersection where she had avoided the Protocol's beast-like avatars.

She shut her eyes, trying to think which direction she should turn. The TARDIS normally seemed to guide her to wherever it was she wanted to go. Instinctively, she'd know which way to turn, which corridor to take. True, that had helped her traverse the familiar route to her bedroom, but now she was expected to descend into the bowels of the dimensionally transcendental time machine and find a room she'd never seen before.

"Left."

Her eyes snapped open. That was the Doctor's voice. She glanced down the left branching corridor, which seemed to go on forever. It wasn't unusual for TARDIS corridors; walls of burnished bronze and gold and orange, punctured at random intervals by roundels of various sizes.

"How do I know it's you speaking to me, Doctor?" she asked the empty air.

"Trust me, Sophie."

"But you could be the Protocol trying to mess with me," she responded, before adding "you know, again."

"We're running out of time," the Doctor's voice pressed.

Sighing, Sophie nodded. "Fine."

Slowly, she began making her way down the left-branching corridor, making sure to keep most of her weight off her injured ankle however possible. The air was still freezing cold, but at least the temperature wasn't dropping any further, and the TARDIS' smooth course meant that she wasn't being thrown about like a rag doll anymore.

She continued down the corridor, before reaching what seemed to be an elevator lobby. Instead of elevators, though, each doorway led to a spiral staircase that stretched away in gravity-defying and utterly confusing directions. There was one that seemed to twist about like a pretzel, another that zigzagged and a third that went straight up.

"Oh, God," Sophie muttered to herself. "Doctor, you need to sort this place out. Which one am I meant to take?"

Only silence answered.

"And now you leave me," she sighed through clenched teeth. Interestingly enough, the walls of the staircases seemed different to the rest of the TARDIS she'd seen thus far. One seemed to made of some sort of coral-like substance, which glowed with a kind of inner light much like the walls of the console room. A few were a sterile, slightly off-putting white, with much larger, more evenly-spaced roundels than she was used to seeing. Another was stone, and yet another seemed to be some kind of ghastly leopard-print wallpaper.

The last, however, with a staircase that went downwards at an impossibly steep angle, was panelled with wood. The scents of undisturbed dust rose from it, and something in Sophie's mind told her that that was the direction to take.

She had a feeling that each of these staircases would lead to very different parts of the TARDIS, and though all of them had the quality of history about them, a sense that they had not been disturbed or even considered in quite a while, only this last beckoned to her the way the path to her bedroom had before.

The TARDIS, wherever she was inside her own systems, was calling to Sophie. For some reason, despite the chill of the air, that warmed her. To know that the TARDIS was still there, was still fighting, that it had refused to give in to the Protocol…

Sophie smiled. It was a quiet smile, but one full of resolve.

Tucking her phone and the sonic screwdriver into the pockets of her enormous coat, she started down the staircase, and gravity immediately corrected to keep her in position. She would have been walking perpendicular to where she'd been standing on the deck above, but it felt for all the world like she'd just stepped from one stair to the next.

With one hand on the railing, she descended the staircase as quickly as she could given her ankle. At the foot of the stairs, she could make out a faintly glowing light.

She was about halfway down when the deck bucked beneath her like a wild horse.

Sophie lost her footing, and slammed down to the stairs hard. Thankfully, she managed to maintain her grip on the railing; if she hadn't, she would have tumbled down to the bottom. The ship was shaking, hard, and alarms started wailing as warning lights plunged the staircase into a crimson-infused twilight.

The TARDIS was been shaken apart again. She was running out of time.

Deciding that standing was too risky, Sophie kept a hold of the rail and began to scoot down the stairs while in a sitting position, one at a time. Not only was it more stable that attempting to stand but it kept pressure off her ankle.

She was three quarters of the way down the stairs when the gravity suddenly inverted. In the split second she had before she was thrown the roof of the stairwell, which was now the floor, she managed to grab on with both hands to the railing. For half a minute she dangled, before the gravity righted itself and she was thrown back to the stairs with a bone-shaking bang.

Pulling herself gingerly to her feet, bruised and sore all over, she pushed her ankle to its limits. By the time she reached the bottom stair, she was about to pass out. Sucking in a deep, steadying breath, she made for the nearest doorway.

It was hexagonally shaped, like many on the TARDIS, and it was coated in a thick layer of dust.

Remembering how the Doctor had opened the door of the storage room earlier, she reached for the sonic screwdriver and went to the nearest roundel. She removed the covering the same way the Doctor had, and pointed the screwdriver at the interior circuitry.

With a sparking start, the door jerked halfway open.

The Doctor wouldn't have been able to fit through the opening, but Sophie, willow-thin and fairly short, managed to squeeze through without much difficulty.

She found herself in a six-sided room that reminded her more of a chapel than the control room of a vessel capable of travelling anywhere in space and time. The walls were wood-panelled, much like those of the staircase she'd just descended, and where the roundels in the rest of the TARDIS were usually located there were instead stain-glass windows that depicted Gallifreyan symbols.

There was an old hat stand, a few antique leather armchairs and the whole place smelled of dust and old books. There was another door, which Sophie guessed would have led to the TARDIS exterior.

The centrepiece of the chamber, though, was a small, four-sided console. Unlike the console in the main control room, this one featured only a few knobs, dials and levers. Gone was the telephone, the gramophone, the typewriter keys and all the various cobbled-together switches and buttons.

Sophie heaved a sigh of relief that she'd finally found the secondary console room. This was all about to be over. The TARDIS was still shaking, but not as badly as it had been, and though the room was still bathed in threatening red light she felt as though a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

She dragged herself the last of the way towards the console and was pulling out her phone when a figure appeared near the doors facing the entrance she'd used.

A blue-tinged, holographic representation of herself was standing there, watching her.

"Oh, God," Sophie groaned, "would you please just go away?"

"The Doctor lied to us, Sophie," the hologram told her, the Protocol's latest avatar speaking with her voice. "He didn't tell us why he brought us on board."

"Us?" Sophie repeated, rolling her eyes, "are you seriously trying to win me over with that whole 'I look like you, so I am you' thing? I've seen _Star Trek_, all right. I know all the tricks."

The expression on the avatar's face, a moment ago serene and beatific, become a twisted sneer of condescension. "The Doctor lied to you."

"I'm sure he did," Sophie said, and set her phone on the console. She lifted the sonic screwdriver, and was about the hit the button when the ship rocked again, just as wildly as it had when the gravity had flipped. This time, Sophie tripped and struck her jaw hard on the edge of the console.

She screamed in pain, and the breath was driven from her as she slammed into the wood-panelled floor.

"The TARDIS is about to breach the Time Lock," the Protocol told her, looming over her and daring to speak with her voice. "Its engines are already at critical. When they lose temporal cohesion, they will unleash a shockwave that will set Gallifrey free."

Sophie blinked as she fought to regain her breath, and finally managed to pull herself up. Despite the pain that threatened to consume her, she stared down the holographic entity.

"The Doctor's already told me how bad that would be," Sophie said, "and no matter what you say about him, you can't get me to betray the trust he's shown in me. You won't get me to give up. Not now."

"How much does he trust you, Sophie?" the Protocol.

"With my life," a new voice boomed.

Sophie whipped around to see the Doctor framing the doorway. He stood there, large as life, wearing his trademark black coat and smiling his usual infuriating, maddening, brilliant smile.

"Impossible," the Protocol intoned.

"Doctor!" Sophie cried, unable to believe her eyes. "I thought you'd be stuck in the Zero Room."

"Funny thing about the Zero Room," he said as he strode towards her, seemingly unaffected by the quaking TARDIS, "is that exists outside of the usual flow of space and time. It's meant to protect whoever is inside from the inconsistencies and random variants of the universe, and it does that by shutting down any outside input entirely. I don't know how long I was in there, but it was long enough for my wound to heal."

"You are too late, Doctor," the Protocol warned him. "This capsule will be destroyed."

"No, it won't," the Doctor assured the ancient Time Lord security device. "Sophie, now!"

Sophie grinned, and raised the sonic screwdriver to the phone. She activated it, and suddenly its screen came to life; it was filled with scrolling and spinning Gallifreyan symbols, glowing bright green. The TARDIS' shaking and bucking slowed, then stopped. The crimson emergency lights flickered off and then the full lights of the ship came up brilliantly.

The cold in the air began to leach away, and the Protocol looked about as the swirling text beneath the surface of its holographic avatar picked up in speed and intensity.

"Impossible," it roared, "impossible!"

Sparks exploded from the stained glass roundels, and the Protocol began to shimmer and fade in and out.

"The TARDIS is reasserting herself!" the Doctor said to Sophie as he stepped into place beside her. "Her Matrix is overwhelming the Protocol, shutting it out of her systems!"

Sophie grinned. The lights that glowed behind the stained glass windows grew brighter and brighter still, until Sophie had to shield her eyes from the insurmountable glare. It was a cleansing light, that seemed to leach away the last of the cold and whatever remained of the Protocol's presence.

The TARDIS gave a great, powerful shudder; the Doctor ran to the console, and saw on the readouts that it was powering away from the Time Lock around Gallifrey at all possible speed, that its engines were falling away from critical. The TARDIS Matrix had indeed reasserted its control of the old ship, and the Protocol was losing.

"No!" boomed Sophie's voice, twisted and electronically manipulated.

The Doctor looked up, just in time for a burst of kinetic energy to strike him hard in the chest and bowl him off his feet. The Protocol's avatar was now a twisted caricature of Sophie, and was fast losing coherence. The creature, another dark legacy of the Time Lords, was standing over the two of them, one hand raised and its mouth a twisted cry of horror.

"You will be taken back to Gallifrey!" the monster was screaming, "you will be taken back or you will be destroyed!"

"Not today!" Sophie said, and she helped the Doctor to his feet. "Not after all this."

The Doctor smiled at her, even as the Protocol geared itself up for another attack. "Do you trust me, Sophie?"

She nodded. "Of course I do, Doctor."

He took one of her hands and folded it tightly around the edge of the console. "Then hold on tight!"

He slapped a control on the console surface, and the exterior doors flew open. Sophie's eyes widened as the vacuum pull of air rushing from the secondary control room into the Time Vortex, a yawning chasm of swirling blue light that beckoned from beyond the doors, hit her like a slap.

She held onto the console as tightly as she could as the air and whatever wasn't bolted down rushed past her. The Protocol's avatar, though holographic, was still tangible enough to be affected by the physics of decompression.

With one final cry, it was sucked from the secondary control room.

As one, the stained glass roundels exploded. Shards of brilliant coloured crystal rained through the chamber as they poured into the vortex after the avatar, which quickly winked out into darkness.

The Doctor hit the door control again, and the room was sealed. He and Sophie fell to the deck as gravity took hold again.

She took a few airless breaths before the life support system had pumped enough oxygen back into the room. The chamber was dark, save for the sparking ruins of the roundels and a few lights on the console.

"Is that it, Doctor?" Sophie asked, as the last of the adrenalin coursing through her body died away and the pain in her ankle took hold once again. "Is it gone?"

The Doctor, slumped beside her against the console, nodded. "When the TARDIS took control of its systems, it forced the Protocol's entire presence into its avatar. It was flushed out of the system entirely when the avatar left the ship and was destroyed in the Vortex."

He pulled himself up to check the readouts on the console, which were mostly functioning. Sophie, with great pain, went up to join him. "So what's happening now?"

"The TARDIS is back on a normal course in the Vortex," the Doctor explained. "There's been a great deal of damage, but its back to full power and shouldn't take long to repair. The physical damage, at least."

"What do you mean?" Sophie asked, frowning.

"The Protocol took a lot of information with it," the Doctor explained, shaking his head. "The databanks have just about been wiped clean."

"So what do…" Sophie trailed off, as she noticed the small screen on the secondary console come to life. She leant in towards it, and what she saw made her feel like she'd just been punched in the gut. It was an image of a newspaper article, from a paper called the _Country Leader_.

The Doctor, peering over her shoulder, recognised it immediately.

"Sophie," he said, his voice quite, full of regret and sadness, "no…"

But Sophie wasn't listening. Her eyes were flying over the article, taking in every word. There was a picture of a man and a woman hugging a little girl, and she recognised all three of them instantly. It was her and her parents. And the article said that she had died with them.

If what she was reading was true, she was meant to have died on 2 March, 1996. She was supposed to die in the same car crash that took her parents from her.


	51. The Cerberus Protocol: 8

**'The Cerberus Protocol'**

_8. Safe_

* * *

><p>"Doctor," Sophie said at long last. Tears that refused to be shed shone in her eyes, and she looked up at him plaintively. "Is this true?"<p>

The Doctor swallowed. "I don't know."

"What do you mean 'you don't know'?" Sophie demanded, forgetting her injured ankle to size up with the Doctor. She pounded a finger into his chest. "What the _hell_ do you mean, 'you don't know'?"

He looked away, his mouth working with no sounds coming out.

"Doctor!" Sophie cried, lunging at him to get his attention. Instead, she stepped awkwardly and her ankle gave out. The Doctor caught her as she fell to the deck.

The tears finally started flowing, and the Doctor held her to him as she cried.

"Am I meant to be dead, Doctor?" she asked, burying her face in his broad chest. The Doctor swallowed.

The answer, as far as he could tell, was yes. Something had drawn the Trickster's Brigade to Sophie. Something had made the Vrigillian crave her blood, something had made the Daleks spare her life, and none of it was simply because she had, or in the case of the Brigade _would_, travel with him.

The simple fact of the matter was that something about her was wrong. Something about her was different. Her very presence was enough to throw the Doctor's senses out of kilter. Ordinarily, he knew what should have been; what could have been, what must be.

Sophie, however, made that impossible for him to judge.

The first day he'd invited her aboard the TARDIS, his ship had immediately shown him that article. Sophie was a complicated event in space and time. That's how the leech had been able to create an entire pocket universe around her, and if the article was true then she shouldn't have been alive.

And yet she was.

She was a living, breathing young woman, who'd just survived a traumatic experience only to have had that trauma driven home by a piece of evidence that said, quite simply, that she shouldn't exist at all.

"No," the Doctor lied, finally. "You're not."

Sophie's crying lessened, but she didn't let go of him. "Then what… what was that thing? That article, what was it saying?"

The Doctor heaved a heavy sigh. He was about to compound his lie with an entirely fabricated story, but he still hadn't figured out what had made Sophie such a paradoxical figure and until he did he didn't want to worry her unnecessarily.

"It was a lie," the Doctor told her. "A fabrication invented by the Protocol to distract you, to keep you from helping the TARDIS Matrix."

Sophie, still shivering, stop crying entirely. She leant back, looking the Doctor in the eyes. She swallowed. "Are you sure?"

He wanted to say 'no'. He wanted to tell her the truth, but after everything she'd gone through… he couldn't. He couldn't do it. "Yeah," he said, nodding and offering her a light smile. "Of course I'm sure."

His hearts clenched as she nodded, and wiped away tears. "So what do we do now?"

"How about I get you up to the medical bay and we fix your ankle?" the Doctor said with a smile. "You've got a hell of a bruise on your jaw, too."

Sophie suddenly felt all the aches and pains she'd accumulated over the last few hours. "And everywhere else."

The Doctor helped her up and over to one of the few armchairs left standing in the console room after the decompression earlier. After a few moments, he helped her towards the door and then up the stairs beyond.

* * *

><p>Some time later, the Doctor found himself in the main console room. Sophie had retired to the medical bay for a while both to let the TARDIS' healing technologies get to work and to sleep off the events of the last few hours.<p>

The TARDIS' systems were mostly back to normal, and her Matrix was settling back in well. Unfortunately, it looked like most of its databanks were irretrievable. Sighing, the Doctor realised that he'd have to spend the next few weeks visiting centres of knowledge and learning throughout the universe and see if he could rebuild all that information.

He sighed, and hung his head.

It broke his hearts to lie to Sophie, but he couldn't imagine what else to do. He'd had experience with things like this before, and it had never ended well. The Protocol had brought back those memories, along with the voices of companions he hadn't seen for centuries.

He thought of them often, but hearing their voices had made the pain of his long separation from them all the more fresh and searing. Worse, in the darkest moments when it looked like the Protocol might actually succeed… he had wanted it to.

Gallifrey may have been a bureaucratic hell, trapped in a kind of condescending cultural stasis that he had always chafed under, but it had been his home. He remembered the glittering dome of the ancient Citadel of the Time Lords. He remembered the debates in the Panopticon, the shining hillsides, the burnt orange sky.

As a young man, he had fled from there at the first possible opportunity. As a middle-aged man, he had ignored it and avoided it whenever possible. Now, as an old man, he missed it every day.

It was gone now, lost forever. That was the way it should be.

Sophie was one of the few people he'd met in the many centuries since he'd lost his homeworld who had been able to understand the scale of his loss. She'd been so young when her parents had been killed, and she had spent her entire life without a base, without an anchor.

Like him, she had had friends. Like him, they had served as her anchors but only to a certain extent. Now, he realised, he needed her. He'd spent so long travelling alone, and though he hadn't come as close to darkness as he had in the past, he still craved companionship. Particularly companionship from someone who knew the extent of his loss.

"Selfish old man," he said to himself, catching his reflection in the TARDIS scanner.

One day, he'd need to tell Sophie the truth. He knew that, as surely as he knew that he was doomed never to see Gallifrey again. One day, he'd have to admit to her that, according to history, she was supposed to have died as a five year old in 1996.

Sighing, he resolved to tell her. Eventually. But not today, not for a while. She deserved to know the truth, but she also deserved a little more fun. Whatever turned out to have caused the paradox of a still-living Sophie, in defiance of the web of time and the path of history, the Doctor had no doubt that it would hurt Sophie deeply.

It might even destroy her.

He couldn't let that happen. Not yet.

* * *

><p><strong>The story continues in 'In Media Res'<strong>

**COMING SOON**

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **_Thank you so much to everyone who reads this story! I really, truly appreciate it. Thank you especially to those who follow and review, it means so much. This is the end of 'The Cerberus Protocol', and there are only two more stories left to go this year... 'In Media Res' and the last story, which is called 'The Life and Death of Sophie Freeman'. A few people have said that they're really interested in finding out what happened to Sophie, but the answer is a little ways off yet I'm afraid. It's definitely coming, though! Keep reading and reviewing and, if you think the story is worth it, please recommend it to your friends._


	52. In Media Res: 1

**A/N: **_I'm re-posting this chapter because I was unhappy with the way the story was progressing and decided to take it in a different direction. Sorry, guys! Also, it's coming up to the end of semester at university so I'm very very busy and don't have enough time to write as much as I'd like. Before the end of the year, though, there'll be three more stories featuring the Doctor and Sophie posted here... so hold on, please read and enjoy and, of course, review!_

_A few notes regarding this chapter's content: Aristophanes is an actual historical figure, Kar-Charrat appeared in 'The Genocide Machine', a Big Finish audio play, and the Delirium Archive appeared in 'The Time of Angels'. This story takes place very shortly after 'The Cerberus Protocol'._

* * *

><p><strong>'In Media Res'<strong>

1. _Libraries and Museums_

* * *

><p><strong>EGYPT, 198 BC<strong>

* * *

><p>Deep in the Library of Alexandria, the Doctor was staring at a unfurled scroll. Beautiful Greek calligraphy lined one half of the papyrus, and the other was adorned with intricately painted Egyptian hieroglyphs.<p>

"See here, Doctor," Aristophanes of Byzantium said holding a candle closer to the scroll. With his other hand, he pointed a long, gnarled finger at certain sections of the Greek text. The chief librarian was stooped and well into his sixties. He wore a simple white robe, stained with ink. "These marks, on this line. And down here."

"Yes," the Doctor agreed, nodding. "Most ingenious."

The two stood in a small reading chamber off the main stacks of the great library. It was a cramped, dusty room, dominated by a wide reading desk against one wall and a recliner that had been imported from Rome itself.

"The single marks separate verses," Aristophanes went on. "Shorter pauses go on the lower echelon. Mid-length pauses go here, around the midline. And the longest pauses are here at the top of the line."

"Most ingenious," the Doctor repeated, shaking his head in admiration.

From the recliner, the third occupant of the room snorted.

Aristophanes turned to behold her with a mixture of annoyance and condescension. "You have something you want to add, dear?"

Sophie Freeman rolled her eyes. "No, chief librarian."

"No," Aristophanes said, turning back to the scroll. "I should think not."

The Doctor maintained eye contact with his companion for a few moments, just long enough to mouth an apology for the old man's rudeness. Sophie, however, wasn't buying it. Instead, she stared daggers at Aristophanes' hunched back. At the Doctor's insistence, she wore a dress cut just above the knee in the Ptolemaic style, Roman sandals and a golden clasp around her upper left arm in the shape of an Egyptian asp.

With the thick, dark wig of straight hair over her natural brown, curly tresses, she appeared every inch the Egyptian noblewoman. Still, Aristophanes didn't seem to be able to get past the "woman" part.

"Excuse me just a moment, won't you?" the Doctor said to Aristophanes.

The old man nodded, apparently absorbed by the writing on the scroll. "Yes, yes, of course."

The Doctor stepped away, and took a seat beside Sophie on the recliner. Unlike her, he hadn't bothered to dress to match the period. He wore his trademark long black coat, despite the oppressive heat of the North African day.

"Not much longer," the Doctor said, smiling apologetically.

"Why are we even here?" Sophie whispered, gesturing around at their dark, dust-choked environs.

"We're in the Library of Alexandria!" the Doctor protested. "The greatest centre of learning in the ancient world. One of the largest repositories of knowledge ever conceived of by mankind. If it's known, it's here! Books and scrolls and stories from all over the world, from places as far away as China, as wild as Britain. It's all here, inside these walls!"

"And all watched over by a sexist pig with the controlling tendencies of a fascist," Sophie said back, clearly furious. "Ancient Egypt is outside these walls, as you would take pleasure in saying, and instead we're stuck here. With him."

Jerking her thumb towards Aristophanes, Sophie took the opportunity to direct a silent curse at him.

"He's the chief librarian of the Library of Alexandria," the Doctor explained.

"Which is the greatest centre of learning in the ancient world, one of the largest repositories of knowledge ever, blah blah blah," Sophie finished for him. "Which is amazing, and breathtaking, and really, really awesome, but there are pyramids out there. The descendants of Ptolemy. Across the ocean, Rome is sitting there. There's an entire world out there to explore, and a library that I have wanted to visit since I was a little girl... and there's him."

The Doctor smiled, understanding. "I know. Look, we only have to keep him happy for a little while yet. Then we can go and explore."

Sophie sighed. "All right, fine. But what are we doing here anyway?"

* * *

><p><strong>LONDON, 1924<strong>

* * *

><p>Lightning flared, throwing the empty, darkened corridor in the British Museum's White Wing into harsh relief. Heavy rain battered the windows, and Sophie Freeman barely suppressed a shudder at the desiccated corpse staring at her from the glass-fronted case.<p>

"Anyone we know?" she asked the Doctor.

They stood amongst the many hundreds of Ancient Egyptian artefacts displayed by the British Museum. The TARDIS, in all its tall, blue police box glory had been landed a few metres away.

"Too old," the Doctor said, examining the mummy. "I'd say from at least a thousand years before our trip to Egypt."

Sophie arched an eyebrow. "All right, Doctor, so what are we doing here?"

"I thought you wanted to go to the British Museum," the Doctor answered, indicating their surroundings. "Tens of thousands of objects, one of the largest collections in the world."

Sophie sighed. "Don't try and distract me with that stuff again, Doctor. You said we were going to the 1920s, you told me to dress up. I thought we were going to a party!"

The Doctor blinked. "Why would you think we were going to a party?"

"Because you literally said that we were going to go to a party!" Sophie protested, throwing her hands in the air. She was dressed in the best flapper style she could cobble together from the TARDIS wardrobe, wearing high heels, a knee-length black dress cut wide and flat and a bejewelled, feathered headband. "You said 'Come on, Sophie, we're going to a party in London. 1925'."

The Doctor couldn't help but smile at her passable imitation of his voice. "Yeah, you're right. I did say that. And I promise we'll go. Lady Asquith has given me an open invitation to any of her soirees, and I have the feeling that she'll be utterly charmed by you."

Sophie, however, wasn't buying it. "Yeah, yeah. You're still trying to distract me."

"Yes," the Doctor admitted.

She frowned. "Okay, fine. So what are we doing here, then? I mean, I get why you would want to talk to Aristophanes. Sexism aside, he was a brilliant guy. Even I can admit that. But there's no one around. You landed us here in the middle of the night."

The Doctor had stepped over to another display, this one housing and exquisitely crafted and obviously ancient lyre. He drummed his fingers against the glass. "I thought it would be nice to avoid the crowds and the curators."

Sophie sighed. "Why else would you come to the British Museum, though? Especially when you have a time machine. Doctor, we could go and meet this guy."

She tapped on the mummy's case as another flash of lightning illuminated the gallery. In the gentle light given off by the TARDIS, though, the lightning wasn't creepy so much as cosy. The atmosphere, Sophie thought, was more Agatha Christie than _The Mummy_, present bandage-wrapped company excepted.

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, I know. And there's a reason, I promise. Now, come on, we've spent long enough here. Let's go visit Lady Asquith. I hear the prime minister is going to be in attendance."

* * *

><p><strong>THE DELIRIUM ARCHIVE, 171st CENTURY<strong>

* * *

><p>"Another bloody museum!" Sophie said as she and the Doctor stepped from the TARDIS into a beautiful, richly-appointed gallery with a high, vaulted ceiling, stained-glass windows depicting abstract scenes and Gothic arches. The feel of the place, however, was far more alien than anywhere else they'd been lately.<p>

"The Delirium Archive!" the Doctor announced as though that were supposed to mean something to her. "The final resting place of the Headless Monks..."

"And a museum," Sophie interrupted before he could go on. "I thought we were finally, finally done with this."

"Well, you were wrong," he said simply, and walked away from the TARDIS. Sophie followed, fuming.

"What the hell do you mean, '_I_ was wrong'?" she pressed. "You said we were done with museums after that thing on Mars."

"That 'thing' was an Ice Warrior," the Doctor answered, "and yeah, I did say that."

Sophie couldn't help but smile at the memory of the Ice Warrior that had been resurrected from its stasis sarcophagus during their recent sojourn to the archives of the University of Mars. A planetwide emergency had been declared before the Martian had managed to communicate the fact that he was a peaceful artisan with no stomach for violence and no interest in conquest.

"Besides, you've had some fun," the Doctor said. "We went on a cruise down the Nile, you met Stanley Baldwin... and I'm pretty sure President Clinton was flirting with you at that fundraising at the Smithsonian."

"Yeah, well," Sophie said, blushing at the thought. "He's very charming. And you were getting all cosy with his wife."

"She's a fascinating woman," the Doctor said defensively. They had walked the length of the gallery now, surrounded by glass display cases filled with artefacts from a thousand worlds. "Look, Sophie, I'm sorry I've been dragging you all over the place, but there's a good reason. I promise."

She sighed, and offered him a smile. "Yeah, Doctor, I'm sure there is. I just wish you would be more upfront with me."

The Doctor frowned for a second, his expression turning oddly dark. Sophie was taken aback for a moment, before he went on with a light, almost amused tone. "I know. I'm sorry. Look, there's not really much to see here. Why don't we go back to the TARDIS, and we can visit the New Hanging Gardens of Babylonia Alpha."

"If there's not much to see, why did we come here at all?" Sophie asked as they turned back towards the TARDIS.

The Doctor slowed, studying her. "We've been through a lot in the last couple of months. After the incident with the Protocol, I thought you could use some time to rest. A little fun. No Daleks, no crazed skyscrapers, no murderous cults."

"No collapsing alternate universes." Sophie nodded, grinning. "But, Doctor, I know there's more to it than that. First Alexandria, then London, then the Smithsonian, then Mars and now here. That's five museums in a row. There's a reason you're taking us to all these places."

"There is," the Doctor nodded, "and I promise I'll tell you when it's all finished."

She frowned. "You don't trust me?"

The Doctor smiled reassuringly. "Of course I do."

They'd reached the TARDIS now, but as they approached Sophie noticed that there were a pair of uniformed security guards waiting for them. The Doctor was about to go on, and finally explain what they had been doing for the last few weeks, when Sophie nudged him.

"Ah, Doctor," she asked, "who are those guys?"

"Uh," he said, biting his bottom lip and trailing off. "Last time I was here I might have stolen some stuff..."

"Oh, Jesus," she said under her breath as the uniformed men approached, one pulling a nasty-looking, space age taser and the other preparing handcuffs. "We're going to be arrested again."

"Not if I have anything to say about it," the Doctor said. "Run!"

* * *

><p><strong>KAR-CHARRAT, 210th CENTURY<strong>

* * *

><p>"So," Sophie said, examining the wet, humid jungle that pressed in around them on all sides. "Not a museum, then. Or a library."<p>

The Doctor, carrying the umbrella that shielded them from the incessant rain, said "There used to be one here. A long time ago. One of the most ambitious attempts in galactic history to create a repository of all knowledge."

"What happened?" Sophie asked. The jungle, thick and verdant, seemed completely undisturbed by any sentient hands. Birdsong filtered through the trees and the chorus of chittering insects suffused their surroundings.

"The Daleks," was all the Doctor would say.

Sophie remembered her own encounter with those armoured, abominable mutant creatures, bent on genocide and conquest. She decided not to ask any more questions.

They'd taken a quick walk through the jungle. There didn't seem anything unusual about the stop, aside from where the Doctor had landed the TARDIS. They'd returned to the clearing where they'd left the tall blue box, and Sophie was surprised again to see how the Doctor had parked it.

The box, their home and means of transportation, occupied the majority of a cave mouth in the face of an escarpment that was largely indistinguishable from the rest of the jungle. The TARDIS itself sat directly beneath a waterfall. Water cascaded down every surface; from the light atop the roof, over its edges, bouncing off the windows and the door.

"You still haven't told me why you landed the TARDIS there," Sophie said, nodding towards the waiting ship.

The Doctor smiled wanly. "The Kar-Charratans are old friends of mine. They're helping me out."

"Where are they?" Sophie asked, looking around. "I can't see anyone."

"They're the water," the Doctor said, indicating the waterfall. Sophie blinked. "The Kar-Charratans are an aqueous lifeform. Incredibly intelligent, capable of retaining and communicating vast sums of information. A long time ago, an old friend of mine set up a library and used the Kar-Charratans. Against their will, he included them in a computer system, pumped them full of information and kept them trapped."

Sophie shifted uncomfortably. "The water's alive?"

The Doctor nodded. "It's not that unusual, really. When you consider the size and complexity of our universe. Anyway, the Daleks showed up. The Kar-Charratans managed to communicate with us. Ingenious beings, truly. They managed to get inside the Daleks' casings and destroy them. It was... impressive."

"So I guess the moral of the story is," Sophie finished for him, "don't piss them off."

He smiled. "Their friendly. In fact, right now, they're communicating with the TARDIS, imparting their knowledge to her."

Then it dawned on Sophie. "That's why we've been visiting these places. Knowledge. Data. Information. The Protocol deleted the TARDIS' databanks, and you're trying to fill them back up."

The Doctor grinned. "Exactly. As soon as we arrived in Alexandria, it began scanning all the books in the library. It used its scanners to create a twelve dimensional representation of all every book, every scroll. It did the same at the British Museum, at the Smithsonian, on Mars and at the Delirium Archive. It's tapped into the internet, to the galactic communication and data nets."

"And why couldn't you tell me that?" Sophie asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "I thought you'd find it boring."

"I found it boring anyway," Sophie said, sighing. "At least this way I wouldn't have complained so much."

He laughed. "I like the complaining. It's funny."

She aimed a playful punch at his upper arm, but her heart wasn't really in it. "I would have understood, Doctor. I know that what the Protocol did to the TARDIS hurt you. You're helping your friend. I understand."

The Doctor smiled at her, and with his free arm he pulled her into a hug. Releasing her, he turned back to the waterfall. "I think the Kar-Charratans are done."

"So what now?" Sophie asked, surprised to see the waterfall stop flowing entirely. "Is this it for the libraries?"

The Doctor offered her a small smile. "There is one place we need to go."

* * *

><p>Sophie sat in the Doctor's favourite seat near the TARDIS console as her friend spun and weaved around the console, flicking switches and throwing down levers. "So where to now?" she asked.<p>

"The Geranium Collection," the Doctor said. "An old friend of mine runs a historical database of truly epic proportions, and I think that'll be enough to tide over the old girl's databanks."

"And just who is this old friend?" Sophie asked as she stood and crossed to the Doctor as he flung down one last lever. She took a hold of the console's edge as the TARDIS shook and quaked its way through the Time Vortex, the glowing time rotor shifting up and down.

It was always exhilarating, this moment. The TARDIS in flight, no way to tell where or when they were going to end up, no notion of what might be awaiting her outside those doors.

She and the Doctor shared a grin, but the mood was shattered when a deep, resounding clang sounded throughout the ship. It sounded like some kind of warning gong.

The Doctor's smile froze and his eyes widened in horror.

"Doctor?" Sophie said, concerned. "What's wrong?"

"That's the cloister bell. It's a warning of apocalyptic disaster," he explained, going to the scanner and activating it. A diagram indecipherable to Sophie appeared on the screen, but even she could tell that its red angry red hue did not bode well. The Doctor slammed down a lever and halted the TARDIS' travel. "There's an enormous temporal distortion sending shockwaves through the Vortex. There's a tsunami of chronon energy barrelling towards us."

"What's going to happen?" Sophie asked, a spike of adrenalin coursing through her. "Can you get away from it?"

The Doctor was flicking switches and adjusting controls, inputting new coordinates. "No. It's coming after us too quickly. I can't pin down the source, but it's preventing us from reaching the collection. I'm going to have to land the ship."

"Where?" Sophie asked, but the Doctor waved a hand to silence her.

"Sorry, but I need full concentration on this," the Doctor said, and grabbed the zig-zag plotter and turned it left and right. The time rotor began to rise and fall faster than Sophie had ever seen it, but the TARDIS was shaking quite independently of the tremors caused by its engines. Alarms and klaxons began to screech through the control room, and sparks erupted from the console and the roundels in the bulkheads. "It's going to hit!"

Sophie was rooted in place, but the Doctor grabbed her and pulled her to the ground as the chronon energy struck the ship. The Doctor covered her, bracing against the impact that tossed the TARDIS through the void like a rag doll.


	53. In Media Res: 2

**'In Media Res'**

1. _Grand Old Dame_

* * *

><p>Sophie Freeman came awake slowly, in stages. First, she felt the pain. Every part of her body seemed to be in agony, her joints aching and her muscles stiff. Her awareness expanded beyond the pain; she realised she was lying on her side, half in sand and half on stone. Her breathing was shallow and ragged, and for a few moments it was all she could hear.<p>

She groaned, but her lungs and throat and lips all protested. The sound that emerged was little more than a strangled murmur.

Her eyes flickered open, and a rush of sensory perceptions threatened to overwhelm her. She heard the crashing of waves and the thin whistling of wind. She found herself lying on a rocky beach, the sky above a ceaseless blanket of dense, steel-grey cloud. The unbroken ocean, demarcated from the land by foaming grey-green waves crashing against the rocks lining the beach, stretched off to the horizon.

The wind was chill and she was freezing. Slowly, Sophie pushed herself up. Her clothes, the same she'd been wearing on Kar-Charrat, were wet and clung to her closely. She began to shiver, her teeth chattering, but she didn't have the energy to stand.

Exhausted, she shut her eyes and clenched her teeth.

The pain was dying away now, but was still present. She found herself wondering what the hell had happened. The last thing she could recall was the TARDIS being struck by the wave of chronon energy and being thrown off course. The Doctor had tried to brace her against the impact, but the wave had only been the first of many.

Taking a few moments to collect herself and take a breath, she tried again to stand and finally managed to get off the ground. She was grazed, her clothes were torn, but nothing was broken. Her ankle had been tender for the last few weeks, since the thing with the Protocol, but even it was okay.

She looked around, but could see nothing except for the dull yellow sand of the beach, the endless sky above and the featureless sea beyond. The rocks of shoreline were grey and jagged, like teeth jutting from the sand. A short cliff a few metres high was about ten metres behind her, though that too was lifeless rock save for a single, scraggly plant.

There was no sign of the TARDIS, the Doctor or any civilisation whatsoever.

Shivering, Sophie decided to head for the cliff figuring it was best to get up high for a better vantage point. She reached the cliff, and found an easy handhold. It wasn't as steep as she had thought from further down the beach, and it was a matter of gripping the stone tightly and continuing the move. Thankful that she'd chosen boots that morning, she scrabbled up the cliff face and managed to reach the top, even though she slipped once or twice.

It was pure, grim resolve that got her over the top.

She pulled herself onto the rocky surface, and pushed herself up to her feet. As scuffed and sore as she had been a few minutes ago, now she looked like she'd been through a war. In the distance, and over the howling of the wind, she heard a seabird squawk.

Wherever she was, the atmosphere was breathable and everything looked enough like Earth. She swallowed, and looked along the shoreline. The beach was about half a kilometre long, trapped between a pair of rocky headlands that jutted into the ocean. Low, thick brush land stretched away behind her. Thick sea mist hung low against what she realised now must have been an island, obscuring the hills in the distance.

Other than the wind and the waves against the shore, there was no movement

She could still see no sign of anyone, or anything, else.

Taking a deep breath, to the consternation of her lungs, she prepared to shout. "Doctor!" she called, her voice almost vanishing in the howl of the wind. "Doctor!"

There was no answer.

She turned back to the shoreline, and realised with horror that the TARDIS might have sunk into the ocean, or else might have drifted away. It could be anywhere. With a settling horror, she realised that the same was true for her; this place certainly seemed like Earth, but it could have been one of any number of Earth-like worlds. Even if it was Earth, this could be could be a thousand years in the past, or a million.

"Doctor!" she cried again.

This time, though, there was an answer. "Sophie!"

The voice was distant and quiet, but it was definitely the Doctor. Sophie's eyes widened and her heart skipped a beat, pleased to hear his voice, to know he was alive. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she called "Doctor! Where are you?"

"I'm over here!"

Sophie realised that the voice was coming from the other side of one of the headlands. A rocky outcrop was obscuring her view, but Sophie began to move towards it as quickly as she could. Clumps of tough beach grass jutted out from cracks in the rock, and the stone itself was wet and slippery. It was slow going, but finally she reached the outcropping and managed to pick her way over it. She discovered an even more rocky stretch of shoreline waiting for her.

Two things drew her attention.

The first was a sprawling old Victorian mansion, three stories tall. Complete with boarded up bay windows, a widow's walk, balconies and a broken, rotting jetty sticking into the ocean, the house sat about twenty metres back from the shore. The land here was flatter, sloping gently towards the brambles that led towards the hill. Footpaths were overgrown with weeds and a stone fountain was covered in moss. The house looked perfectly abandoned, some of its windows smashed and an upper floor door hanging off its hinges. The paint was faded and chipped and in sections had visibly rotted.

The second was the TARDIS.

Lying on its side amongst the rocks of the shore, the time ship, wearing its usual guise of a tall blue police box from the 1960s, had its doors open and was belching smoke into the sky. The Doctor, his usual black coat drenching wet and looking rather ruffled, was leaning against his vessel, hacking and coughing.

Sophie, despite the strangeness of their surroundings, could help but grin. She ran towards the Doctor and when she reached him pulled him into a bear hug. He responded in kind, lifting her clear off the sand and squeezing her as tightly as he dared.

"Are you all right?" he asked as he set her down.

"I'm fine," Sophie nodded, smiling despite herself. "Actually, that's not true. Everything hurts and I've got the worst headache, but I don't think anything is sprained or broken."

The Doctor smiled back. "I'm glad to hear it."

"What happened?" Sophie asked, touching the TARDIS. "Can you fix the TARDIS?"

The Doctor's expression went dark. "The chronon wave was more powerful than I thought. I was trying to land the TARDIS, but it had already disrupted space-time around our location in the Vortex. I thought we'd ride out the wave, but it was only the first. The TARDIS was thrown clear of the Vortex, and it must have crashed here."

Looking towards the house, Sophie said "And where is here, exactly?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know. All I know is that this is Earth, sometime after the 1870s, but some time before the 1960s."

Sophie arched an eyebrow. "How do you know that?"

The Doctor sniffed the air. "Traces of industrial pollutants in the atmosphere, but nothing like in your time. We're somewhere in the far northern reaches of the planet, judging by the flora and I would wager Scotland or the north of England based on the architecture of that house."

Sophie had to admit she was impressed by his deductive skills. "All right, then. So what's the plan?"

The Doctor looked to the TARDIS, and rested a hand on its facsimile wood exterior. He shut his eyes for a moment, as though blinking to fight off a coming pain. "The TARDIS is down for the count for a little while. She'll need time to recuperate, but there won't be any lasting damage. Poor girl has been through so much the last couple of days."

Suddenly, Sophie remembered what the Doctor had told her before the ship had been thrown off course. "Doctor, you said that that sound we heard before the wave hit was a warning of an apocalypse."

The Doctor nodded. "Yes."

"And that wave that hit us," Sophie went on, "was presumably caused by that apocalypse."

"Yes," the Doctor repeated, sounding grim.

"So what does that mean? That the end of the universe is coming?" Sophie asked, refusing to be effected by the fear threatening to overwhelm her. "Other than knocking us out of the Time Vortex, could that wave do more damage?"

The Doctor fixed her with a glum stare. "I don't know."

That wasn't enough for her. "Come on, Doctor, you have to know something. You have to have some idea. What's happening out there? What does it mean?"

The Doctor finally noticed she was shivering, and took his coat off. Without answering, he draped it over her shoulders. "Here you go. This'll keep you warm."

"Don't avoid the question, Doctor," Sophie said, frowning. "Please. Talk to me."

The Doctor's shoulders slumped. He sighed. "That wave is incredibly dangerous. I don't know what caused it, but it came from some point in our relative time streams."

"So from the future?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Yes. And no."

Sophie frowned. "All right, so what do you mean? Be straightforward, if you can."

The Doctor heaved a sigh, as though the weight of galaxies was on his shoulders. Which, Sophie reminded herself, was true. He found a piece of drift wood, and drew a line in the sand.

"This is the passage of time," the Doctor explained, "though, in reality, it isn't as linear as this."

He drew two more running parallel to the line, and then connected them in a few places. "These are our individual time streams. This point is where I met you for the first time, and this is where I invited you to come on board the TARDIS. Our time streams are separated, but they do intersect in places."

"But you said 'our' time stream," Sophie asked, studying the diagram to help order her thoughts. "What did you mean?"

"You and I don't share a time stream, Sophie. Ours have been linked by circumstance, by friendship, by shared experience. But they're not one in the same. You have your path to follow and I have mine. That wave was caused by something in our time _streams_. Yours and mine. Yours _or_ mine."

"But not necessarily from the future," Sophie said, nodding. "But wouldn't we remember? If something we'd done in the past caused an apocalypse, or if we'd have experienced one."

The Doctor drew a few strikes through his diagram. He wanted to tell her the truth, to explain to her that he knew exactly what had caused that wave, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Not yet. "We don't always realised the consequences of our past actions."

Sophie swallowed. "So what can we do?"

The Doctor shook his head again. "I honestly don't know. That wave will spread through the cosmos, doing untold damage to the web of time and the only thing that could cause that kind of reaction is an uncontrolled, unlimited temporal paradox. It could be that the only way to save the universe is to prevent that paradox from occurring, or else find a way to make it self-perpetuating."

Nodding, Sophie considered. "I can't honestly say I completely understood that, but you know I'll be here for you, whatever you need."

The Doctor watched her for a moment, as though pondering something. His expression grew even darker, before he finally smiled. "I know you will, Sophie. Come on, we can't stay out here with the TARDIS. This mist is cold and getting colder. It must be mid-afternoon, and depending on the time of year we could only have an hour or two of sunlight left. Let's go up to the house and bunk down for the night."

Sophie turned towards the imposing edifice of the mansion that seemed to be watching them. She shivered again, and this time it had nothing to do with the cold. "Up there?"

"I know," the Doctor said, "it's creepy. But the TARDIS won't be ready to fly again for at least a few hours, and night falls quickly around these parts. Not to mention, it gets bitterly, bitterly cold. Up there we can start a fire, get our clothes dry and stay warm for the night."

Sophie nodded. "All right. Do you think we could get some stuff from the TARDIS?"

"I can't recommend it," the Doctor answered. "You'd need to rappel into the console room, and I can't promise the internal dimensions would be stable. She's badly damaged and when that happens she tends to get a mite unpredictable."

Sophie sighed. "So all we've got are the clothes on our backs? Fantastic."

The Doctor shrugged apologetically.

"At least we're alive," Sophie said, smiling genuinely. The universe might be in danger, and she and the Doctor might be cut off from the universe on some nameless, lifeless island, but she had to make time to glorify in the joy being alive. "How did I end up down the beach, by the way?"

"The TARDIS tends to expel its inhabitants before a crash landing," the Doctor said. "I landed over by the house. You weren't so lucky, I suppose."

"I suppose," Sophie agreed, though her heart wasn't in it.

The Doctor reached out his hand and snapped his fingers. The TARDIS doors closed, cutting off the rising column of smoke from its source. The wind soon scattered the smoke amongst the mist.

"I've never seen you do the thing with the clicking before," Sophie said as she and the Doctor began to walk towards the house. "How'd you learn that trick?"

"Long story," the Doctor said, and they fell into silence for the rest of the trip.

* * *

><p>It took them less than twenty minutes to reach the house at an even trot, and even by the time they got there the sky had gotten significantly darker. The mist, too, seemed to grow thicker and they were damp through to the bone by the time they reached the relative shelter of the house. They found the front door locked, but the wood was rotten and soft.<p>

It was easy enough for the Doctor to use his sonic screwdriver to force the lock, and then he and Sophie managed to bend the door back on its hinges enough to slip under the chain keeping it closed. They found themselves in a broad entry lobby, an impressive staircase leading to the upper floor. There was no furniture and no decorations; the floorboards were rotting through, the stairs looked hazardous at best, downright murderous at worst, and what little wallpaper remained was cracked, peeling and mouldy.

"It doesn't half stink," Sophie said.

The Doctor looked around the room, his expression a mixture of delight and amusement. "What a beautiful old place. Such a shame it's been allowed to fall apart like this."

Sophie was about to draw the parallel between the house and the TARDIS, but decided not to. "So, after weeks of visiting the universe's most best museums and libraries, we end up here. In an abandoned, mouldy wreck of a joint on some island in Scotland."

The Doctor grinned. "Isn't it great?"

"Yeah," Sophie admitted, his grin infectious. "I suppose it is. I just wish we could get out of here and find out what caused that wave."

"Me too," the Doctor assured her, "but now is not the time to worry about it overmuch. We're stuck here until the TARDIS repairs herself, and we may as well make the best of it. Come on, if I know my architecture, the formal dining room should be in this direction. And if it's not, then it'll be in the other direction. Either way, there'll be a hearth there."

Sophie nodded, and went to follow the Doctor has he took the door on the left. This door had long since fallen off its hinges, and the two of them found themselves in a dark, dank corridor. "How long do you think it's been abandoned like this?"

The Doctor considered. "Oh, I don't know. Fifteen, twenty years? Ordinarily, a well-built house would last much longer before this amount of decay set in, but considering the surrounding environment and the utter lack of upkeep, I'd say we're lucky it's still standing."

"Why would anyone build a house on an island like this?" Sophie asked. "So far away from everything. It must have been very lonely."

"Maybe that was the point," the Doctor said. "Maybe they liked their privacy."

"Maybe," Sophie agreed.

They reached the end of the corridor, and the Doctor pushed open the creaking double doors onto a wide room lined with windows. Most of them were boarded up, but some still featured cracked glass. They looked out over the beach, and Sophie could make out the TARDIS in the distance.

There was some furniture in here, and even a threadbare rug. A rickety looking table was fronted by two equally rickety chairs. They seemed far less grand than the house, and appeared quite out of place. Interestingly, there was a dust-choked grand piano not far from the table. To Sophie's relief, there was indeed a hearth. The fireplace was impressive, carved stone, and above it on the wall hung a rotted oil painting.

All that remained of the image was the faint outline of a man riding a horse.

Once upon a time, this would have been a beautiful place. No doubt lushly furnished and opulently decorated, bathed in the warming glow of the fire. Now, it was decrepit and cold.

The Doctor went to investigate the fireplace as Sophie wandered around the rest of the room. Light filtered in through the windows, but the shadows seemed to take on a life of their own here. The floorboards creaked, and spiderwebs caked the ceiling and sideboards. There was no other furniture save for an empty bookshelf in the far corner.

"What do you think happened here?" Sophie asked as she joined the Doctor again.

"My guess is that someone sold the house," the Doctor said, not taking his head from the fireplace. He was looking up the chimney. "It was probably part of a family estate, and it was too far away for them to do anything with so they offloaded it on someone. That person probably tried to do it up, only to run out of money or interest. So it was left to rot. Sad fate for a grand old dame like this house."

"Grand old dame?" Sophie repeated. "What is it with you and anthropomorphising stuff?"

"I've got to have fun somehow," the Doctor said, apparently satisfied with the chimney. "They haven't sealed it off, so this fireplace is good to use."

"We just need to find kindling," Sophie said. "We should have brought driftwood up with us from the beach."

The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, that would have been too wet. What we need is one of those chairs."

Sophie looked at the table and its forlorn little set of chairs. "Oh. I thought we were going to sit on them."

The Doctor smiled sadly. "No, I'm afraid not. This is going to be a fairly uncomfortable night on the floor in front of the fire, I'm afraid."

With that, he went over to one of the chairs, picked it up, and slammed it against the table. The table wobbled, but the chair shattered, sending splinters and pieces of itself all over the floorboards. Sophie watched the scene in surprise. "I can't believe you just did that."

The Doctor turned, his expression wounded. "Can't believe I did what?"

"Broke the damn chair," Sophie said, and went over to help him gather up the wood. "Like, you just picked it up and smashed it. How punk rock are you?"

The Doctor grinned at that, and together they carried the remains of the chair over to the hearth. "I should have matches in one of the pockets," he said to Sophie, indicating to the coat he'd leant her.

She fished about in one of the pockets, and finally withdrew a small box about the length of her thumb. "You mean these?"

"Ah, yes," the Doctor said smiling, taking the box from her. He withdrew a long, purple matchstick. He struck it, and the end flared into a small, lilac flame. "Ever-lasting matches."

He set the match down on the small pile of firewood.

To Sophie's complete lack of surprise, it didn't immediately start a blaze. "Uh, Doctor, haven't you ever been camping?"

"Oh, I've been camping," he said, handing her the matchbox again. He took his sonic screwdrive from his pants pocket, and pointed it at the match. Activating it, he warned her to shield her eyes. "This is going to get bright."

The tip of the screwdriver lit up, and the familiar high-pitched fluting noise filled the air. The match suddenly exploded, every atom overheating at once. The wood, so close to the explosion, began to burn healthy. The fire spluttered in the cold, before taking a hold on the surrounding oxygen and belching smoke right up the chimney.

The Doctor allowed himself a self-satisfied smile.

"Come on, you get close to the fire," he said to Sophie, "and see if you can't dry out. I'm going to poke around the rest of the house and see what I could find."

Even a few metres away, Sophie could feel the heat of the blaze washing over her. Considering the bitter cold of the beach and the rest of the house, she wasn't about to complain. Drawing the Doctor's coat tighter around her slight shoulders, she sat Indian-style on the old rug. "All right," she said with a smile, "I'll see you soon."

The Doctor offered her a mock bow and slipped from the room.

Sophie watched the flames leap and spark, and slowly gave herself over to the warmth. Despite the downright eerie quality of their surrounds, she was glad to get a break from the running and terror that had characterised her life with the Doctor, the last few weeks notwithstanding.

If what he'd said about the chronon wave that had knocked them off course turned out to be true, she thought that the days ahead were going to get dangerous.

She frowned, thinking back on her travels.

More often than not, things had come back to her. For instance, the Vrigillian in Siena had chosen her blood to feast on, over even the Doctor's. The Trickster's Brigade creature that had created the alternate universe around her had only been able to do so because, as the Doctor had put it, she was special. Even the Daleks had decided that they would rather her than hold on to Ford XVII... and the Protocol had just been terrifying in every possible way.

What if this future apocalypse had something to do with her? What if the wave that had nearly killed them was actually her fault?

She put that thought out of her mind, recognising it as self-centred and unhelpful. If it was her fault, if it had something to do with her, she would get past it. The Doctor would help her. He always had before.

In the warmth of the fire, she began to doze off. Then she heard a creaking behind her.

Instantly, she was on her feet. Her heart was pounding, her fight or flight response activated... but there was nothing there. The rapidly gathering shadows of the descending night were dancing in the light of the fire, but there was no sign of anything that could have heard the creaking noise.

And then she heard it again. It had come from the door at the opposite end of the room from where she and the Doctor had entered. Her skin pricked as she approached the door, and she had the distinct feeling that she was being lost.

Doing her best to keep her footsteps quiet and her breathing silent, she nudged open the door... only to find an empty corridor.

"Doctor?" she said into the darkness, thinking that perhaps he'd doubled back. "Is that you?"

There was no answer.

Another creak, this time from somewhere close by. Sophie swallowed, and pressed forward. It was probably nothing, but she'd seen enough horror movies to know that it might in fact be something. This brought her up short. In most horror movies she'd seen, she realised, the first person to be killed died because they strayed from the safe area.

Making the decision to retreat back to the fireplace and wait for the Doctor, she turned.

And jumped out of her skin.

A tall, dark shape was blocking the doorway back to the formal dining room. She realised with a start that it was the Doctor, and he rushed towards her, clearly concerned. "Sophie? What's wrong?"

"Don't sneak up on me like that!" she complained, shaking her head and getting her breathing under control. "I thought I heard a noise, I decided to come and have a look."

The Doctor smiled, his concern melting away. "Don't make a habit of it. Old places like this are fall of squeaks and groans. Look, I found this."

He pressed a squared bottle of amber liquid into her hands. "Is this whiskey?"

"Vintage 1867, from the north of Scotland," the Doctor said. "Absolutely priceless. No glasses, I'm afraid."

Sophie took off the cap and downed a swig, much to the Doctor's wide-eyed shock. She blanched as she swallowed the burning amber liquid, but then handed the bottle back to the Doctor. "So, drink from the bottle, weakling."

The Doctor smiled. "Why, Sophie Freeman, I do believe I'm seeing a whole other side to you."


	54. In Media Res: 3

**'In Media Res'**

3. _Cold Comfort_

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><p>The Doctor and Sophie returned to the formal dining room, the former carrying the bottle of whiskey. They sat in front of the fire, watching the flames leap across the remains of the chair they'd broken earlier. Night had taken hold outside, and darkness was rapidly descending. Soon, she knew, the entire island would be frigid, and even in the warming embrace of the fire they'd be shivering and fighting off hypothermia.<p>

"So what do we do now?" Sophie asked as they settled in, huddled beside each other. The Doctor gave off almost no body heat, she realised, but it all might have just bled away into the cold air that surrounded them. "Just wait until morning?"

The Doctor shrugged, and hefted the bottle. "I thought this could help us keep warm."

A smile quirked across Sophie's face. "Keep us warm? That's the only reason you decided to bring it here?"

"I don't drink," the Doctor answered. "And I couldn't find any bedding or blankets."

Sophie lifted an eyebrow in disbelief. "You seriously don't drink? Someone your age, after all the things you've seen... I thought you'd hit the bottle pretty often."

"I have in the past," he admitted. "I invented the banana daiquiri."

She laughed. "I have an idea. Something to pass the time and keep us warm."

The Doctor's eyes widened and he nearly choked in surprise. "Uh, Sophie, I'm a bit old for you..."

"Oh my _God. _That is _absolutely_ not what I meant. That is so far from what I meant it's practically in Perth_._" she said, throwing a playful punch at his upper arm. As he rubbed the spot she'd hit him with one hand, she grabbed the bottle from his other hand. Laughing off the Doctor's embarrassed and somewhat confused expression, she took the cap from the bottle again. "I meant that we could just, I don't know, drink this and talk."

"Talk?" the Doctor repeated, sounding unsure.

"I know so little about you, Doctor," Sophie said. "Even after all this time travelling together, when I think about you, about who you are, there's this big... nothing. I know you're from Gallifrey, I know you're the last of your kind. That's about it, other than a few hints you've dropped."

The Doctor's expression grew dark. "There are some things I don't like to talk about, Sophie. Some things that I shouldn't talk about. Some things I just can't."

Sophie offered him a warm, comforting smile and rubbed his left forearm with her free hand. "I know, Doctor. I just want to... I see you, you know?"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I see you when you think I'm not looking," Sophie told him, and she shifted closer. "I see you when you stare off into space, when you frown for no reason. I see you looking at monitor in the console room, glancing around all furtive like. You're keeping secrets, keeping things hidden from me."

The Doctor took a breath. He looked like he was about to launch into a length explanation, but Sophie shook her head to silence him.

"I'm not saying that you should tell me everything, Doctor," Sophie said. "I know that you can't. I'm just trying to tell you that I'm here and that you don't need to keep everything to yourself. You can trust me. I can help you."

The Doctor's smile was small and full of regret. "I'm afraid you can't, Sophie."

She took a swig of the whiskey as a breeze from the broken windows made the fire splutter in the hearth and sent shivers through her. "These chronon waves that are destroying the universe, Doctor... are they my fault?"

The Doctor did a double take. "What do you mean?"

Sophie shrugged. "I don't know. Something just feels... I don't know, I've been feeling it for a while. The Vrigillians in Siena went after me, Doctor, and you said it was because of the TARDIS energy in my blood or whatever. By why me and not you? And on Ford XVII, the Daleks were willing to give up the entire planet for me. Not to mention the Trickster's Brigade. You said that a bubble universe wouldn't have been created around anyone. Why me? What makes me so special?"

The Doctor studied her for a moment. His face was a steely mask, his expression completely unreadable. She knew, intellectually, that he was an alien but she'd never quite felt it as much as she did in that moment.

"You are a very special young woman, Sophie," the Doctor said at length, and her shoulders slumped as he spoke. She knew a non-answer when she heard one. "You are strong. Unbelievably strong. You told the Daleks where to shove it and defeated a member of the Trickster's Brigade almost single-handedly. You survived growing up without your parents. You more than survived, as a matter of fact: you thrived."

Sophie gave a snort of laughter. "We both know that isn't true, Doctor. I was struggling though life in a blind daze when we met. I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going."

"Like I said," the Doctor nodded, completely serious. "You were thriving. You see, that's what life is. We never know where we're going to end up from one day to the next. It's the people with plans I worry about, the people obsessed with direction."

He beckoned, and Sophie passed him the bottle. "Is that why you travel the way you do? Never quite sure where you'll end up."

He nodded as he took a sip. The burning alcohol barely seemed to bother him. "I suppose so. I... had a direction. I had a place. I knew where I was and who I was and where I was going. It chafes, after a while."

Sophie took the bottle back and endured another swig. "The grass is always greener, I guess."

"I guess," the Doctor agreed. "One day, I'd just had enough. I found the TARDIS, or she found me, and we took off together. Haven't looked back since."

"Really?" she asked. "It's just the way you talked about your homeworld... you sounded like you missed it. A lot."

"Oh, I do," the Doctor said, taking another sip as Sophie handed him the bottle. "I didn't wantt o live there, Sophie. I barely wanted to visit. But there was somewhere to go. A home. An... anchor."

"And that's what I don't have," Sophie said, staring at the fire. "That's what I never had. Oh, don't get me wrong, a lot of my foster parents were lovely and even the ones that weren't so great were caring and loving people at their core. I had Leisel and the Rosettis. I had good people around me. I just... I never fit in, really. I was drifting. I didn't have an anchor. I guess I still don't."

The Doctor, watching shadows dance across his friend's face, put an arm around her. "You do, Sophie. You have me."

Sophie turned to him, unshed tears shining in her eyes. "Are you sure, Doctor?"

"I am," he said, without hesitation. "I will be here for you. I promise."

She smiled, but it was a small, subdued expression. "For how long?"

He sighed. "You know I'm a Time Lord. You know I don't grow old, I don't die. When I reach the end of my life, I regenerate and start again. A new face, a new man, essentially. The same memories, the same ideals, but a different person."

"And I _do_ grow old," Sophie said, nodding. She absentmindedly played with her brown, curly hair, significantly longer than when she'd first met the Doctor. "I _will_ die."

"Morbid," the Doctor said under his breath.

"Believe it or not, Doctor, I came to grips with mortality a long time ago," she told him, gently teasing. "About ten years worth of grief counsellors will do that for a girl."

The Doctor nodded solemnly. "I suppose so."  
>"I was just saying," Sophie went on, "that I understand this can't go on forever. You and I, travelling in the TARDIS. One day I'll have to leave. Or, I guess, I might be killed. I might be left behind."<p>

"No!" the Doctor barked.

"Doctor, the first time I travelled with you, I made friends with a girl named Chihiro. Do you remember her?" Sophie asked pointedly.

"Yes," the Doctor nodded. "Of course I do. I remember all of them."

She put two and two together. "All the people that die, you mean. All the people you meet who end up dying."

"Yes," he repeated. "I remember Chihiro. She was clever."

"She was brilliant," Sophie agreed. "She was killed by one of those crazy robots, just before you managed to shut down the system and save us all. A few minutes later, the robot would have been disabled and she would have been fine."

The Doctor sucked in a breath through his teeth, and chased it with another sip of whiskey. "I am sorry I couldn't save her. Sophie. I tried."

"No, Doctor, that isn't what I mean!" she protested. "If you and I hadn't been there, millions of people would have died. The virus would have spread from that skyscraper all over the New Tokyo colony. You saved them all. We saved them all. My point is that it's all... a matter of luck. If I'd have been standing just a little closer to the robot that killed Chihiro, it would have gone for me instead and I'd be dead instead of her. If the guy who killed my parents had been driving just a little slower, if he'd have turned right instead of left, they'd still be alive. None of this would have happened."

"I take it you don't believe in fate, then," the Doctor said, genuinely curious.

"No, I don't," Sophie said, taking another sip from the bottle. A pleasant warmth had started to settle over her now. Outside, the wind had picked up and the house was creaking more than ever. She suppressed a shiver; whiskey and fireside chats aside, the house was still creepy as all hell. "You've explained to me the concept of fixed points in time and all that, and I can accept that, but on a personal level, an individual level, I think it all comes down to choice."

"Hmmm," the Doctor said, but he was studiously avoiding her gaze.

"You can choose to act, or choose not to," Sophie went on. "You can choose to tell the truth, or you can choose to lie."

His head snapped around to her. "What do you mean?"

Sophie shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just... explaining my philosophy to you, I guess. I understand that not everyone has the capacity to choose or choose for themselves. Not all the time, anyway. I just think that choice is important, that the decisions we make determine who we are."

"You're right," the Doctor said, after considering her words. He looked into the fire for a few moments, before saying "Sophie, there really is something I must tell you..."

Before he could go on, the door on the far side of the room banged open. The wind outside had become a thin, keening howl, and had damned near blown the door off its hinges. The fire began to splutter and seemed in danger of going out. Together, the Doctor and Sophie dashed over to the door, and struggled to get it closed.

As they did, the rotting wood soft beneath their fingers, Sophie thought she saw a faint glimmer of light at the end of the corridor.

"Did you see that?" Sophie asked as they closed the door.

"See what?" the Doctor asked, arching an eyebrow.

She shook her head and shrugged. "I'm not sure. I could have sworn I saw a light flicker at the end of the corridor."

"What sort of light?" the Doctor asked. His hand went to the door again, as though ready to push it open.

"I don't know. Like, sparks, I guess."

"Sparks?" he repeated, arching an eyebrow. The door was rattling as the wind continued to howl. "There's a hell of a draft down that corridor. Suppose you saw a piece of broken glass or a nail reflecting the light of the fire?"

"Suppose I did," Sophie agreed, "but I've seen enough since I've been with you not to dismiss something odd out of hand, even if I did just see it out of the corner of my eye"

The Doctor laughed. "You're learning well."

Sophie rolled her eyes. "Just scan the corridor or something, will you? Give us some of that Time Lord sci-fi tech."

The Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. He activated it, scanning the corridor behind the door. He lifted the screwdriver and checked the results. "That's odd."

"What is?" Sophie asked, still unable to decipher just how the sonic screwdriver worked. She knew it used telepathic circuitry, much like the TARDIS, and that to use it all one really needed to do was point and think but it was still a miraculous piece of technology way beyond her somewhat limited technical understanding.

"There's a faint energy signature," the Doctor said. "Very faint, and rapidly diminishing."

"Can you identify it?"

He shook his head. "I'm afraid not. It's too faint for the screwdriver to even get an atomic profile. I can't tell what it is or where it came from."

She shivered yet again, once more unable to shake the feeling that she was being watched. "Doctor, is there any chance there's someone or something else in this house? I mean, what are the odds. Of all the times and places in the universe for the TARDIS to ends up, it brings us to this house."

"To be fair, the TARDIS had no idea where it was taking us," the Doctor argued. "The chronon wave knocked out her directional and navigational circuits."

"Yeah, but... why didn't we end up in deep space?" Sophie asked. "Or on Saturn or Woman Wept or New Tokyo or somewhere? Why Earth?"

The Doctor grinned. "I have a special affinity of this dull little blue planet and I think the TARDIS shares it."

Sophie ignored his aside. "All right then, what caused the energy readings?"

The Doctor checked the screwdriver again. "I couldn't tell you. I scanned the house while I was looking around before. That's how I found the whiskey. There were no signs of life, and absolutely no energy of any kind. Especially not, well, energy like this."

"I thought you didn't know what kind of energy it was," she said, frowning.

"Well, I don't," the Doctor admitted, "but it's complex. Way too complex for a location like this. I mean, there's energy everywhere, all the time. Kinetic energy, thermal energy, even psychic energy, but the screwdriver is registering something far more complex than that."

Sophie swallowed. "What are you saying?"

"I honestly have no idea," the Doctor said. "Perhaps it's as simple as residual traces from the TARDIS' landing a few hours ago. The violence of the crash would have sent artron and chronon energy all over the island. Maybe all through this timeframe."

"You don't sound convinced," Sophie pressed.

"I'm not," he admitted. "But I'm not detecting anything else, and that's the best explanation I can come up with."

"That's disconcerting," Sophie said. "Is there anything the screwdriver can't pick up? I mean, is it possible there's something here we can't see or hear or feel or detect?"

"That's always possible," the Doctor agreed. "I think it's better if we don't worry about it, though. Not at this point anyway."

"How come?"

"Because with those chronon waves running riot through the universe, weird little things like this are going to become more and more common," the Doctor said. "With every second that passes, damage is being done to the web of time."

Sophie frowned. "Can it be undone?"

The Doctor led her back to the fireplace, and sat before it. He picked up the forgotten bottle of whiskey, and took a sip. She sat beside him.

"Doctor," Sophie said, touching his elbow, "can it be undone?"

He heaved a sigh. For a second, she heard all of his many years escaping his lungs as he breathed out. He was tired, exhausted and, worse, he knew it. "I honestly don't know. Maybe this will be limited in its effect. Maybe it will spread out. Maybe it's what caused that null zone in the Time Vortex we ran into a few weeks ago, before the Protocol debacle. This could be the end of the universe."

Sophie swallowed. "And it's our fault. Or will be our fault. Or was our fault."

"We can't afford to think about that," the Doctor said. "Try and get some sleep, Sophie. The TARDIS will be ready to fly in the morning, and as soon as she is we need to track down the cause of the paradox. I'll keep watch, make sure there aren't any ghosts haunting this old place."

Sophie sighed, but she nodded and lay down. Resting her head on the Doctor's lap, she turned towards the fire. It was still sputtering as the howling wind sang down the chimney and made the house rattle and creak.

"Tell me a bedtime story then, Doctor," she said, drawing his coat tighter about her shoulders.

"A story?" he repeated. "A story about what?"

"Gallifrey," Sophie answered immediately. "Tell me about your home."

"Gallifrey?" he asked, and she heard his voice catch. "Well, uh, what do you want to know?"

"Everything," Sophie said, and despite herself she yawned. She was still sore and cold, but there, in that moment with the Doctor, she felt safe. Weird house and universe-ending cataclysm notwithstanding. She had faith that he'd be able to solve the crisis and set everything right. After all, he'd done it before.

The Doctor paused for a moment and considered. "It was a beautiful planet. One of the most beautiful planets in the universe. Fields of silver-leaved trees stretching out beneath a burnt orange sky, endless chains of snow-capped peaks reaching up into the heavens. I remember standing on the north slope of Grandfather's Shoulder, one of the tallest mountains in the system, as a young man and watching the suns set. I counted the stars of the constellation of Kasterberous as they came out, one by one. I listened the wind as it blew through the singing heather and carried their music up the mountain, right to the very peak."

Sophie took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She let her mind wander as she breathed in and out and for a while she almost felt as though she was standing with the Doctor on Grandfather's Shoulder, the stars slowly winking into life above her.

"In the Mountains of Solace and Solitude, on the Continent of Wild Endeavour, stood the Citadel of the Time Lords," the Doctor went on, his voice adopting a dreamy quality as he spoke. "A great glass dome, filled with galleries and parliaments, conference halls and ballrooms, the ancient compounds of the old and noble families of Time Lords. The colleges, the Panopticon, the Matrix which contained all the knowledge of all the Time Lords. More knowledge than could ever be consumed, more experiences than could ever be lived. Beneath it all sat the artificial singularity that powered our world and kept us strong, the Eye of Harmony."

"It sounds incredible," Sophie said, as she had to suppress another yawn. "Why would you ever want to leave?"

"Because beauty can disguise boredom," the Doctor said, and gently stroked her hair. "I was trapped there, Sophie. It was my home, yes, but I wanted more."

This time, she couldn't keep the yawn at bay. "Go on, then. Keep talking, Doctor."

He smiled. He went on, describing his homeworld, the ancient and mysterious planet of the Time Lords long since lost. As he spoke, Sophie's imagination conjured up images of endless fields of orange flowers beneath a brilliant sky, of oceans wild and untamed, of glittering domes beneath blazing suns, and she finally drifted off to sleep.


	55. In Media Res: 4

**A/N:** Two updates in as many days! Hopefully this makes up for the slump in posting recently, as everything is due at the end of the semester around now. As always, hope you read and review and enjoy!

* * *

><p><strong>'In Media Res'<strong>

4. _I am Death_

* * *

><p>As she slept, Sophie Freeman dreamt.<p>

_She dreamt she stood on the surface of the planet Gallifrey, in fields of singing flowers, watching tall, stately men and beautiful, regal women in long, red and orange and yellow robes, with high, arched collars, go about the business of government and science and history. She dreamt she watched snow fall on the domed citadel of the Time Lords, that she and the Doctor stood and watched the stars come out._

_ She dreamt that she was in the back seat of her parents' car, on election day, 1996. The day her parents died. She dreamt that she was watching the clouds, listening to her parents bicker about something unimportant. She dreamt she heard the radio announcer say something she didn't understand and didn't care about._

_ The screeching of failing brakes, the horrific grind of metal rending metal. Shattering glass._

_ She dreamt she was upside down. She could smell the blood, the spilled petrol. She could taste the adrenalin in the back of her throat. All she could feel was a dazed non-feeling; no pain, no fear, just the struggle to survive._

_ The heat of a fire was getting closer and closer, an all-consuming blaze she couldn't hope to escape from. She dreamt she was five years old, and about to die._

_ Then she dreamt it all again. The car, her parents, the crash. She dreamt she was suspended upside down, unable to move or think. She dreamt that the fire was creeping closer, ever closer, when she saw a face and felt strong hands around her. The seat belt was cut away and she was pulled free from the wreckage of her parents' car._

_ She knew they were dead. When she had lived this event, she had known they were dead._

_ Sophie Freeman, in her dream as young as she had been that day, looked up into the face of the person who had saved her. She saw herself._

_ She dreamt she was standing in an ocean, somehow above and around it. She saw waves, smashing against distant shores and carving away entire sections of coast. Rocks and boulders tumbled into the ocean, creating more waves that spread out endlessly, infinitely, growing more and more powerful. The coastlines were being carved up, continents were falling away and everything was being destroyed._

_ Villages, cities, cultures, civilisations all vanished in instants, smashed to pieces by the waves._

_ And on one wave, tossed high and thrown about like a piece of driftwood, was a small blue box. The TARDIS. She wanted to reach out, to find the Doctor. She was afraid, she realised, utterly terrified. All she wanted to do was wake up, to stop the destruction._

_ In her dream, she knew it was all her fault._

_ "Doctor!" she cried, but there was no answer._

_ She wanted so badly to wake up. She wanted the dream to end._

* * *

><p>"Sophie?" the Doctor whispered to the still woman, her head draped on his lap.<p>

A storm had broken over the island while he'd told Sophie about Gallifrey and the Time Lords, and rain lashed the house. A howling, keening squall rattled the windows even harder than before, and the entire house seemed to be swaying in the face

She didn't answer. Instead, she just continued to snore softly, wrapped tightly in his coat. He stroked her hair again, and couldn't help but smile. Before he'd met Sophie, he'd spent so long travelling alone that he'd almost forgotten what it was like to have a companion, to have someone join him in his adventures.

His was a lonely life, when all was said and done.

The last of the Time Lords travelling in the last TARDIS, with friends popping from time to time and always going back to their lives. As they had to. As they should. He had known that, intellectually, no one could travel with him eventually. TARDIS travel had its dangers, and real life had challenges of its own.

Emotionally, however, it had taken him a long time to come to terms with the impermanence of his life. He was adrift, which was the way he liked it, but it was still terrifying in its own way. He touched Sophie's cheek, and noticed that her eyes were moving below their closed lids.

She was dreaming.

It had been a long, long time since he'd properly had a dream. He'd had encounters with beings that had forced him to sleep and had confronted him in his dreams, had even been the recipient of a few messages telepathically implanted via dream suggestion.

He rarely slept. It was a simple fact of his age, his biology and the fear of what would come for him when he dreamt. He missed it.

He missed being young and innocent enough to see sleep as an escape from the pressures of actually living. Of being. A state of unconsciousness that allowed the brain to reset itself and work out its darker impulses.

The fire was starting to dim as it burnt its way through what was left of the chair he'd smashed earlier. Gently lifting Sophie's head off his lap and settling it down on the floorboards, he stood and returned to the rickety carpenter's table and the chair beside it. He carried the chair back over to the fireplace, and place it over the ruins of its twin.

He took out his sonic screwdriver and activated it, exciting the particles of the wood and helping the fire to spread. The fire grew, its light and warmth spreading out through the dining room. The Doctor turned to take their surroundings in once more, and found himself imagining what it must have looked like at when someone actually lived here.

He saw wall hangings and a long, beautifully appointed oak table lined with tasteful dining chairs. He saw a crystal chandelier hanging above, reflecting the light of the fire. History was a beautiful thing, the Doctor had always thought, and just as incredible as seeing it was imagining it. The spark of history could light a blaze of creativity.

Glancing back at Sophie, who had tucked her hands under her head to lift it from the floor and had curled up tightly, he decided to have a bit of a wander. He was sure, after all, that the house was empty. Creepy, yes, but neither the sonic screwdriver nor his innate sense for trouble was warning him off.

But then, his senses had been off lately.

He'd realised, a few weeks ago, that Sophie was the cause of that. When he'd first met her, he'd realised immediately that there was something unusual about her. Not about her personally, of course, but the way she existed within the spatio-temporal matrix of the universe. Something about just wasn't quite right.

The Doctor decided to have another look around the house, to let his imagination wander.

Something told him that his immediate future was going to be very busy, very dark and very dangerous. He could take one night to indulge in the predilections of an old man long past his prime, couldn't he?

As he left the abandoned dining room and returned to the entrance hall, he thought back to Sophie. He'd met her as a healthy, if not particularly happy, twenty year old, working at a book store to pay for a dodgy apartment and go to university. Her life had been an endless parade of riding bus, going to class and standing for hours behind a counter. She was clever, resourceful and an all-around fantastic young woman, but there was nothing about her to indicate why she would have such an effect on him.

But an effect she had had. He saw, felt and perceived the passage of time as a matter of course, and since he'd met Sophie that sense hadn't quite been as accurate as normal.

When he'd arrived on Ford XVII, for instance, he'd had no idea that history had been put so far off course. The planet, covered in sprawling factories, was meant to be entirely automated and the source of goods for half a galaxy or more. Instead, it had been conquered by the Daleks and manned by slave labour, producing weapons of war as part of a long-term plan to build a planet-sized, mobile fortress. He'd managed to spark a revolution and put history on its correct course again, but the fact that he hadn't realised it at first was troubling in and of itself.

Worse, he'd seen evidence that Sophie wasn't meant to be alive at all.

The TARDIS had reacted to her arrival with something akin to queasiness and had pulled from its databanks an article from a paper in the town where her parents had been living when they'd been killed. Sophie, the article said, had died with her parents in 1996, fifteen years before she'd ever met the Doctor.

In one of Sophie's dreams, made manifest by a member of the Trickster's Brigade, the Doctor had been witness to the fateful car accident that had rendered her an orphan. A horrific scene, he recalled: the car flipped on its roof, flames spreading quickly, shattered glass covering the road. He shivered at the memory, unaffected as usual by the cold.

So, really, the question was whether or not Sophie was _supposed_ to have survived that accident. Was the article accurate or was the fact that Sophie Freeman, a walking, talking, vivacious twenty year old woman, was alive, as alive as anyone the Doctor had ever met, proof enough that she was, indeed, _meant_ to be living?

History was not a straight line, time not simply a linear procession of cause and effect. There were fixed points, that had happened and always would happen the way history recorded them. There were points of flux, where history could be altered and set on a different course. Something told him, though, that the car accident was indeed a fixed point; history was one thing, but the lives of individual, average people was most important, vitally so, to the functioning of the web of time.

The point in flux, then, would be Sophie's survival.

The Doctor sighed, and realised he'd reached the main room. The impressive stair case leading to the first floor landing almost beckoned to him. He took a deep breath and, careful to avoid any sections of the stairs where rot had set in, began to climb.

That, the Doctor realised, his senses chiming with a confirmation, must be the point of divergence. Sophie's survival, as a five year old in 1996, was splitting time. That was the cause of the chronon waves that were doing such damage to the universe. He swallowed, fearing the implications.

What if the only way to save the universe was to ensure that Sophie died in 1996? Could he live with that outcome? Could he allow a five year old girl, a girl who would grow up to become his friends, to die? Could he really stand by, watch that happen, allow it to happen, and still call himself the Doctor? Worse, what if he didn't? What if the chronon waves continued to burn through the Time Vortex, destroying history bit by bit, year by year, until the universe itself simply ceased to be?

Both were outcomes too terrible to contemplate, but one must, inevitably, take place.

"No," the Doctor said to himself, his voice echoing through the enormous chamber. It was lost in the howling of the wind and the creaking of the house, but he repeated it to himself again and again and again. "No, no, no, no, no."

He wouldn't allow Sophie to die. He wouldn't allow the universe to be destroyed. He was the Doctor, the last of the Time Lords, and he would break the rules one more time. He would find a third option and he would take it and he would save the universe. He would save his friend. Because he had to.

Because he was the Doctor and that's what he did.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw a flash. Nothing extraordinary or even large, but a brief spark of light at the very periphery of his awareness. He jerked his head around, but he couldn't see where the light had come from. It had been somewhere on the first floor landing to his left, but there was no sign of what had caused the flash.

Instantly, he whipped out his sonic screwdriver and began scanning.

Data began streaming back. The same energy traces he'd noticed when he and Sophie had gone to close the door blown open by the wind, but must stronger than before. Indeed, there were emanating from somewhere up here. They were dissipating rapidly, though, and he was determined to get a trace on them before they vanished entirely.

One thing he knew for certain, though. These weren't being caused by the TARDIS. They were coming from somewhere in the house.

He dashed up the stairs, his hearts pounding, and reached the landing. The screwdriver, its high-pitched fluting whine increasing in volume and intensity as it located the energy trace, drew him onwards. He reached the door to a corridor, which he judged was directly above that leading to the dining room where even now his friend slept, and found that it had fallen off its hinges. He followed the corridor, ignoring the doors to either side.

There was still carpet in here, but the stench of rot and decay was almost overwhelming. During his earlier, cursory examination of the house he hadn't gone upstairs, deciding that the stairs were too dangerous to risk testing. He had poked around the ground floor and the basement, where he'd found the bottle of whisky tucked away on a dusty shelf.

He misjudged a step, and his foot passed through the threadbare carpet, tearing it to shreds, into the rotten wood beneath. The floorboard fell away, through a hole in the ceiling of the floor below.

Breathing heavily, hearts beating, the Doctor resolved to pay more attention to his surroundings.

He pushed onwards. The screwdriver continued to guide him, eventually leading him to the end of the corridor, where a locked down stood in his way. He used the screwdriver to pick the rust lock, and the door fell open on squeaking hinges.

The room beyond was dark, dank and reeked, but the Doctor could make out a narrow staircase leading up. Remembering the layout of the house from the outside, the Doctor realised this was the widow's tower. He changed the screwdriver's settings, and the light on the tip went from oscillating green and blue to brilliant white: the screwdriver now functioned as a flashlight.

Holding it before him like a sword, he advanced into the room.

Something was going on in this building, of that he was sure, but he still had no idea what to expect. The screwdriver still had not been able to identify the type of energy or what might be generating it and until he had more information he would be as careful as possible.

Unbidden, thoughts of Sophie came to mind. He really should have been down there with him, making sure she was safe. If there was something creeping around here, her sleeping form would offer a tempting target.

He promised himself he'd get back to her as soon as he could.

A flash of lightning was followed by a bellow of thunder, damn near making the Doctor jump out of his skin. The rain redoubled its efforts, as though it were trying to knock the house down all by itself, the powerful wind notwithstanding.

Slowly, cautiously, he went up the stairs.

They creaked and swayed beneath him, but he didn't trust the bannister. It was in worse shape than the stairs were. He reached the top, and pressed against the trap door leading to the next floor. It wouldn't budge. The wood didn't seem rotted at all. The Doctor sniffed it, licked it and decided that it was as old as the rest of the house and yet, for some reason, hadn't begun to rot.

Again using the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor tried to pick the lock.

The screwdriver squawked a protest.

"What?" the Doctor said, blinking. The lock he could see on the door wasn't a lock at all, but was a facsimile disguising a deadlock seal. The deadlock seal was impervious to sonic technology and one of the more advanced security systems in the universe. "What?"

The Doctor pressed his ear against the trapdoor.

Over the wind and the creaking, though, he couldn't hear anything. He knocked against the wood. "Hello?" he called. "Is anyone in there?"

There was no answer. Not that he'd expected one.

If the sonic screwdriver couldn't open the door, he doubted he'd be able to knock it down. He decided to double back, go down and rouse Sophie and bring her back up here with him as he tried to get the door open and continue his investigation.

He slipped back down the stairs, along the corridor and back out onto the landing. He was halfway to the main staircase, when he saw the figure watching him.

At the very end of the landing, hands on the rail, the figure peered at him with sightless black eyes. It looked human, humanoid at the very least, and was shrouded in a dark cowl. He could make out no physical features other than its eyes. The Doctor's breath caught in his throat.

He swallowed and was about to speak when he saw, in the corner of his eye, the flashing sparks he'd seen early. He turned towards them, momentarily distracted, and when he turned back the figure had vanished.

He dashed forwards, screwdriver extended.

There was a distinct psychic energy trace where the figure had been standing as well as the telltale energy traces he'd detected twice now.

"Where did you go?" the Doctor asked thin air. Sighing, he put the screwdriver away. The energy traces were coming from the widow's tower, he knew that for sure, and there was some kind of alien technology or being up there generating them. But momentary flashes of light, some sort of spectral figure? To what end? For what purpose?

As the Doctor descended the stairs, determined to get back to Sophie, he realised that the creature in the widow's tower, if it was a living being at all, might have no reason to do what it was doing or might have a reason completely alien to his own understanding. He reached the lower floor and dashed down the corridor to the formal dining room.

He threw the door open and shouted "Sophie! Wake up!"

The fire was still blazing merrily and the room was significantly warmer than the rest of the house. Sophie, however, was still fast asleep, curled up into a ball with her head resting on her hands.

"Sophie?" the Doctor repeated, rushing over to her.

She was still snoring lightly, her eyes moving behind the closed lids. She was dreaming, fast asleep, but showed no sign of waking up. He rolled her over, shaking her gently.

"Sophie, wake up," the Doctor insisted, his hearts sinking. When she made no movement, he added a plaintive "Please."

She continued to sleep uninterrupted.

The Doctor felt a presence behind him. He took a breath and turned, to find the ghostly presence standing in the doorway. Though apparently solid, the creature took a few gliding steps towards the Doctor and he realised that it wasn't actually there. A projection of some kind, a spectre.

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked it. "What are you?"

The creature reached him, and surveyed him through dark, unseeing eyes. "I am death."

"No you aren't," the Doctor answered, not missing a beat. "I've met Death, and he was much better dressed."

Indeed, the creature was swaddled in moth-eaten, rotting black robes. The Doctor pulled out his screwdriver once more, scanning it.

The Doctor gave it a small smile. "You're not even physically real. What are you, huh? A hologram? A psychic projection? A trans-dimensional lifeform? I've met a few creatures like you before, and they've made some pretty grand claims."

"I am death," the creature repeated.

The Doctor shook his head. "You're not. You play tricks. You're locked away in a room upstairs and if you hurt my friend I swear to all the gods that have ever been dreamt up that I will break down that door, deadlock or no deadlock, and I will not stop until I destroy you."

The creature lifted a long, bony finger, encased in a glove of what looked like chainmail. It pointed to Sophie's sleeping form and said once more "I am death."

Sophie gave a great, heaving breath and shuddered. Then she was silent.

The Doctor went to his knees immediately, kneeling beside his friend. He checked her pulse and found it still, realised she wasn't breathing.

"What have you done?" he cried, looking up. The creature, the projection, the whatever, was gone. He looked back down at his friend, her eyes now still. "Sophie!"

He knew, in that horrible moment, that her heart had stopped beating. She was dead.


	56. In Media Res: 5

**A/N:** Thanks for being patient, you guys! I have finished uni for the semester, so I am now free to write a lot more than I have been. I hope you enjoy this chapter! As always, please review and let me know what you think. Also, if you think the story's worthwhile, link your friends to it.

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><p><strong>'In Media Res'<strong>

5. _Emergency Measures_

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><p>The Doctor wasted no time at all, rolling Sophie onto her back and immediately checking that her airway was clear. It was, and so he put his hands above her heart and began to press rapidly. His own hearts were racing, blood pounding in his ears.<p>

He couldn't lose her. He couldn't lose another companion. Not after all they'd been through together, not after the scrapes they'd survived, the near misses they'd lived through.

"No!" he cried, as he continued to pump his arms, trying to get some blood flowing again. "No, no, no, no, no! Not this time!"

Sophie's face, an ashen, waxy mask, gave no sign of life.

"No!" he roared, pushing harder and harder. He knew he was about to start cracking her ribs, but he didn't care. He needed to bring her back. He just had to. "Sophie, please! You can't die now! You can't die here! Not in this place."

Not with me.

He realised with a start, as he continued trying to bring her back from the jaws of death, just why he was so adamant that she mustn't die here. She was already supposed to be dead. He'd known it, he'd felt it, for months. Now, only here, did he realise that it was absolutely, positively what was supposed to have happened.

Unbidden, images and memories of the other companions he'd lost came to mind.

Katarina, Sara, Adric, River, Lucie, all the others. Faces and voices he'd long ago put out of his mind but never forgotten. People he'd left behind because he'd had to, because the universe and history had decided to follow a certain course.

Not anymore.

Once, he'd proclaimed himself the Time Lord Victorious. Once, he'd taken history into his own hands. He'd been desperate and scared and so old, afraid of his destiny and shrinking from the inevitable passage of time. But now, in that dark and dank place, he wasn't the Time Lord Victorious. He was just determined.

Any other time, he'd have been able to rush Sophie back to the TARDIS, use its medical technology to heal her or, failing that, set the coordinates for one of the innumerable miraculous hospitals dotting the universe. The TARDIS was down for the count, though, leaving him with only his own somewhat sketchy medical skills and the body of his companion.

"No!" he roared again, and slammed the side of his fist down on her breastbone.

She lay still.

He shut his eyes as tight as he could, reaching back into his own subconscious. The body of a Time Lord was a miracle, whether he was Victorious or not, and all the Doctor needed to do now was reach deep, deep inside himself and pull off one more miracle.

He touched a reserve centre of power and felt a tingling in his fingertips. He opened his eyes, to see motes of golden light dancing around the fingers of his left hand. Regeneration energy, the power that allowed a Time Lord to survive a catastrophic injury, to undergo the complete, irreversible change that altered the make up of every molecule in his body. He was sacrificing some of it now in the hope that it would bring his friend back to life.

Reaching down, slowly, he brushed Sophie's cheek with his glowing hand. The energy seemed to be soaked up by her skin. A few moments later, the luminescence was gone and all that remained was the light of the fire and the shadows of the abandoned dining room.

The Doctor held his friend in his arms, praying to every entity he could think of to come through for him just this once.

For long, painful seconds she lay perfectly still.

Then, in a moment he would remember for the rest of his life, he felt her body tense. As though emerging from a deep, intractable sleep, Sophie's eyes snapped open. She took a deep, shuddering gasp and her back arched.

"Sophie!" the Doctor cried, grabbing her by her shoulders. "Just breathe, just breathe! You're okay!"

She gasp desperately, like she'd just been pulling from water, and her eyes remained wide and terrified. It was as though she couldn't hear the Doctor, let alone see or understand him. Having lived through plenty of near-death experiences, the Doctor understood perfectly. He scooped her into his arms and held her close to him.

"I've got you," he insisted, speaking into her ear. "I've got you, all right?"

Slowly, surely, she began to calm down. Her breathing resumed a normal pace and instead of heaving in his arms she began simply shuddering. "Doctor," she said, as though tasting the word for the first time. "What happened?"

"You were right," the Doctor answered. "There's something in this house."

"What is it? What happened to me? Why does my chest hurt?"

The Doctor was about to tell her the truth, but he bit it back. There was no need to tell her that he'd sacrifice some of his own life for hers. "There's some sort of spectral entity in the area. It stopped your heart."

"It _what_?" Sophie barked, pushing herself back. She rubbed her chest, which would no doubt bear some dark bruises soon enough. "You mean I was _dead_?"

"Only in the clinical sense," the Doctor nodded, finally tamping down his own panic. "I'm sorry about your chest, but I didn't have any other option."

"You kept me alive, Doctor," Sophie said, swallowing and closing her eyes. "I'm alive."

"Of course I did," the Doctor said, and though he tried to sound nonchalant he knew he sounded relieved.

"My head is killing me," Sophie said to no one. She slumped forward, pressing her face into his chest, and he gently encircled her with his arms once more. Then she stiffened. "I'm not cold anymore. I was covered in cuts and bruises before. My hands were grazed."

She lifted the palms of her hands to show the Doctor. The skin was smooth and unbroken.

"What happened?" she said, eyes boggling. "What did you do?"

The Doctor sighed. "I used a very small portion of my regeneration energy to... well, resurrect you."

Sophie's eyes widened even further. "You can do that?"

"Only rarely," the Doctor admitted. "It requires a great deal of trauma, physical or emotional, to activate. I have to be about to die, usually. My body too ravaged by radiation to recover or expel it normally, for instance. And it takes its toll. I... I'm afraid I had to sacrifice a small portion of my own life."

She looked instantly guilty, but she pulled him into a hug. "Thank you, Doctor. Thank you so much."

She released him, and they helped each other to their feet. "So what do we do now?" Sophie asked. "I don't want to run into... that _thing_, whatever it is. Not again."

The Doctor nodded. "Understandable. I tracked some energy readings to a room upstairs, but I don't think we should investigate any further. We need to get out of the house."

Sophie, her breathing still ragged and unsettled, nodded. She seemed to be considering something, though, and even her close brush with death hadn't managed to shake her powerfully enough to disrupt her focus. "All right, that's fine. But you said 'spectral'. Did... did you mean, like, a ghost?"

The Doctor fought the urge to scoff. "There's no such thing as 'ghosts'."

Sophie was taken aback. "Daleks, time-altering leeches, a blue box bigger on the inside, and you're dismissing the notion of ghosts?"

The Doctor caught himself. He sighed, shoulders slumping. "There are... things similar to ghosts out there in the universe. Psychic echoes, temporal or holographic projections, certain non-corporeal alien species. This was... I'm not sure what it was."

Sophie frowned. "Doctor, can I be honest?"

"Of course," he blinked, taken aback.

"I'm asking because sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be," she went on, swallowing a lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat. "Sometimes I feel lke I should keep my head down, like I should just keep moving and hope for the best."

The Doctor felt a tightening in his chest. "Go on."

"I'm scared, Doctor," Sophie admitted, and her brittle voice cracked. Unshed tears shone in her eyes and her lips were trembling softly. "I'm terrified. I want to go home."

The Doctor's eyes widened. For months now, they had travelled together and this was the first time she had ever suggested returning to her old life. "Sophie, I..."

She shook her head, taking a steadying breath. "I nearly died, Doctor. Right now, the universe is falling apart around us. For the first time in a long tine, I just want to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head."

At that, the Doctor had nothing to say. Sophie Freeman was an endlessly impressive young woman, but now, for the first time, the Doctor was seeing just how vulnerable she was; just how scared.

Sophie pulled a deep breath in her nose and exhaled through her mouth. With an effort, she brought her shaking under control. She pulled the Doctor's coat tighter around her shoulders and straight herself up. Setting her jaw, she nodded an instant, she had been transformed "Let's find out what that thing that killed me was, huh? And let's stop it from doing it again."

The Doctor, as surprised as he had been before, was now utterly speechless, floored by a newfound respect for his companion. He revised his opinion of her upwards once again and extended his hand toward her. Waggling his fingers, he made it clear that he was offering her not just his hand but his support, his friendship and, of course, adventure.

"I tracked rogue energy emmissions to the widow's tower," he explained as her hand closed around his. "I couldn't get inside, though, because of a deadlock seal."

"A what?" Sophie asked as the two of them headed for the door.

The Doctor quickly outlined what had happened after she'd fallen asleep, starting with the sparks and ending with returning to the formal dining room and having their enemy reveal its identity to him.

"Death?" Sophie repeated, shivering.

"I'm afraid so," the Doctor said, "and its tone was quite grave."

Sophie's jaw dropped at the pure cheek of making a terrible pun given their situation. The Doctor, though, looked quite pleased with himself. "I can't believe you just said that."

He giggled and shrugged. "Just trying to lighten the mood."

"Try harder," she said, shooting him a dark glare.

They began to climb the main staircase, being careful to avoid any sections of the stairs that appeared to have rotted. Finally, they reached the landing and the Doctor was about to lead Sophie to the deadlock sealed door when she froze beside him. Squeezing his hand, she directed his attention to a hooded, robed figure watching them intently.

In a shuddering, hideous voice, it crowed "You survived."

"It's talking to you," the Doctor whispered to Sophie. "Best not to be true. Answer it."

"What am I supposed to say?" she said through the side of her mouth, not taking her eyes off the menacing creature.

"Just buy me some time," the Doctor said, and surreptitiously took the sonic screwdriver from his pocket.

"Uh," Sophie said, letting go of the Doctor's hand and stepping forward. "You're going to have to try a lot harder than that to kill me!"

"How did you survive?" the creature asked, taking a menacing, creepy step forward which, disturbingly enough, was more of an undulating glide. In its voice, which sounded distant and oddly processed, Sophie thought she heard a note of yearning curiosity. It genuinely had no idea how it had failed.

This revelation made her smile.

Emboldened, she said "You have no idea who I am, do you? I made the Trickster run in fear. I made the Daleks go crying to their mummies. I cast a Vrigillian back into hell and I had champagne with Bill Clinton! I am Sophie Freeman and I am not scared!"

The creature didn't seem to understand what she was saying, but the Doctor gave a triumphant cheer. "Aha!" he roared and Sophie swung back around to see what had gotten him worked up.

"What?" she insisted.

"Delta waves!" he answered, holding the screwdriver up and grinning. "Delta waves!"

"What are delta waves?"

"Brain waves, generated during the REM stage of the sleep cycle," the Doctor said and pointed to the creature. "Our friend over there is a dream, amplified and given substance by low-band varion energy. No wonder the screwdriver couldn't identify the energy signature: no one's used varions for millions of years."

"That thing's a dream? A living dream?" Sophie asked, looking to the spectral being. It had disappeared, however. "Where did it go?"

The Doctor, though, was unperturbed. "A living dream is exactly what it is: an imprint cast by a sleeping... something. Varion waves generate power by bending dimensional laws. They have a tendancy to be adversely impacted by various mental energies including delta waves. That's what made them so undesirable, since whenever someone fell asleep anywhere nearby a varion power source, their dreams would make the varions go crazy."

"But it told you that it's name was Death," Sophie insisted. "It actually killed me!"

"When I first returned to you, you wouldn't wake up," the Doctor answered. "The creature was manipulating your sleep cycle, via the projected delta waves. All it had to do was use that same system to shut down your autonomic nervous system. Your heart stopped beating because the nerve messages from your brain telling it to beat stopped. When I poured regeneration energy into you, it rebooted your brain, forcing out the projected delta waves and reactivating your brain."

"Like a computer being restarted," Sophie surmised.

"Exactly!" the Doctor said. "The only reason the creature could have any power over you whatsoever was that you were asleep. If it hadn't been for that, it wouldn't have been able to do anything."

"It's harmless," Sophie said, shaking her head in disbelief. "For all that, it's harmless."

"As long as you stay awake," the Doctor nodded. "Perhaps that's why this house is abandoned. Maybe there's something sleeping up in the widow's tower, maybe it caused people to die in their sleep."

"Victorians would have thought this place was cursed," Sophie said, nodding in agreement.

The Doctor arched an eyebrow, impressed. "How would you know that?"

"I studied literature, Doctor," she answered dismissively. "Including Victorian literature. For all their moralising and heavy-handed religiosity, Victoria's Britain was a superstitious place. If otherwise healthy people started dying in their sleep, people would run a mile."

"And never tell anyone about it besides," the Doctor agreed. "Can always trust a Briton to keep tight-lipped about something they should really be talking about."

"I can relate to that," Sophie said lightly, shrugging. The revelations about their adversary had done a lot to rehabilitate her mood, but the Doctor was caught off guard by her innocuous statement.

She had literally, physically died and had he not acted fast enough she would have stayed dead. Still he was keeping a secret from her...

"So what do we do now?" Sophie asked, dragging his attention back to the present.

The Doctor thought for a moment. "There's a living being in this house and for all we know it may well be in pain."

"Why do you think that?"

"That thing, 'Death', is a projection of someone or something's _dreams_. They're dreaming about death," he explained. "Would you dream of death unless you were scared or hurt?"

"No," Sophie admitted. "But it tried to kill me."

"It killed you in a dream," the Doctor said, waving away her objection. "You can't blame it for that."

"I suppose not," Sophie admitted, though she was smarting from the Doctor's dismissive tone. "After all, if I was held accountable for everything that happened in my dreams, I'd have been tried and convicted for your murder a long time ago."

"Trust me," the Doctor said, choosing to ignore his friend's joke, "being convicted of my murder is no fun at all. Especially when you haven't actually killed me."

Sophie decided not to ask what he meant. "All right, so there's a being in pain."

"Near some piece of varion technology," the Doctor added. "The energy traces were focused on the widow's tower, so that's where we'll find our friend."

"Not sure if I'm comfortable calling it a friend," Sophie said, before adding "but go on."

"If we can help whoever or whatever it is, then fine," the Doctor said. "If not, then the least we can do is to deactivate the varion core. At any rate, the projections and spectres should disappear and no one else will have to die in their sleep. Not on this island, anyway."

"Not that there's anyone here other than us," she interjected.

The Doctor shrugged. "There will be one day. We can't take the risk that Victorian superstition will keep people away indefinitely."

"True," Sophie agreed.

Wasting no more time, they set off for the room leading up to the widow's tower. Using the screwdriver as a torch, the Doctor lit the way. They found the room, avoiding the rotted holes in the wooden floor. The Doctor mounted the narrow, rickety staircase leading to the trap door into the widow's tower, Sophie following close behind.

"If the door's still deadlocked," Sophie asked him, "then how are we meant to get inside?"

"Easy," the Doctor answered, adjusting the settings on the sonic screwdriver. "All I need to do is generate a delta wave feedback loop, overlaying an artificial wave structure onto the varion feed and..."

He trailed off, fiddling with his screwdriver and then aiming it at the door.

"_Voila_!" he cried a few seconds later.

"What did you do?" Sophie asked, peering around him to get a better look.

"Oh, nothing much," the Doctor said. "I just used my own psychic abilities to create a delta wave impression of an unlocked door, then used the sonic screwdriver to overlay the projection through the varion waves onto the deadlocked door. The varion energy gave the delta waves form, the same way they created our friend 'Death', which meant that the deadlocked door was replaced with a duplicated, undeadlocked duplicate."

Sophie was unimpressed. "That made no sense."

"It made plenty of sense," the Doctor insisted, nonplussed. "It just didn't make any sense to you. I dreamt the door unlocked."

"Why didn't you just say that?"

"Because technical talk is fun," the Doctor answered, before pressing his hand against the trap door and pushing. The lock, a dream made manifest, clicked back and revealed the interior of the widow's tower.

A hexagonal chamber, with windows looking out onto the storm-drenched, fog-covered island around them, it was devoid of furniture. There was just one object, sitting in the direct centre of room. It was roughly egg-shaped, its featureless metal surface glinting as a fork of lightning lit up the freezing night.

"What is it?" Sophie asked.

The Doctor stepped into the room, his companion following him. He ran his screwdriver over the egg and lifted it to check the readouts. He sighed. "It's an escape pod."

"Like, from a spaceship?" Sophie asked, peering at it. "It's tiny. There's no way a person could fit in that."

"Not a full-grown person, no," the Doctor agreed.

"What do you mean?" Sophie asked, before she recognised the Doctor's expression. "You know what's happening here, don't you?"

The Doctor nodded solemnly and stepped over to the escape pod. He pressed the screwdriver against its shell and, a second later, a crack appeared. Sophie realised that a large, circular section covering half of the pod was outlined by a brilliant glow. That section pushed out and then moved up, revealling the interior of the pod.

Lying in a small, padded seat that resembled a cradle, surrounded by wires and cables that were attached both to the seat and its skin, was a small, shrivelled looking being. With purple, wrinkled skin and ice blue hair, it looked bizarrely like a newborn baby.

"What is it?" Sophie asked, breathless.

"It's a she, Sophie," the Doctor answered. "An infant. A child. And she's a long way from home."


	57. In Media Res: 6

**'In Media Res'**

5. _Flossy_

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><p>"Oh my God," was all Sophie could say.<p>

The small child inside the egg-shaped escape pod gave a sigh and rolled over in her sleep. She was naked and looked impossibly small. Sophie felt the urge to reach down and comfort her, but the Doctor touched her gently on the shoulder.

Outside, the storm was still raging, but unlike the rest of the house, the atmosphere in the widow's tower was strangely calm. The howling wind didn't rattle the glass of the windows, the rain didn't threaten to demolish the wooden walls. Even the floor seemed less rotten than the rest of the house. It was as though this part of the house was safe, a sanctuary against the encroaching elements.

"She's young," the Doctor said quietly. "Too young. Her immune system hasn't developed properly yet. If you touch her, you might transmit viruses or bacteria she couldn't hope to defend herself against."

Sophie nodded, realising that the Doctor was probably right. "What is this thing? Some kind of incubator?"

"Sort of," the Doctor said. "She's Imali."

"That's her name?" she asked, confused.

"The name of her species," he corrected. "Millions of years ago, their planet's ecology was devastated by series of solar flares. To save their species, the Imali put thousands of infants into small pods powered by varion wave engines."

"I thought varions were dangerous," Sophie said, unable to take her eyes off the baby.

"Dangerous indeed," the Doctor agreed, "but self-sustaining in a way few other energy sources are and relatively easy for the Imali to control. You see, the Imali had a trilobed brain that didn't require sleep. Because of that, their delta waves couldn't disrupt the varion technology. They put these children, these small, helpless children, into tiny pods and launched them into space, aiming them towards stars around which they calculated inhabited planets did or would one day orbit."

"Stars like Earth's sun," Sophie realised. "She's a refugee."

"Perhaps one of the last survivors of her species," the Doctor nodded. "The Imali were supposed to arrive on their new homeworlds after a few decades. Perhaps this little one got lost, only falling to Earth a few years ago."

"Landing here," Sophie said. "On this island. Like us."

"Exactly," the Doctor nodded. "The pod is part travel capsule, part incubator, part stasis pod."

"She's asleep, though, Doctor," Sophie said, examining the infant. "She's dreaming."

"Yes," he agreed. "Odd, that. I suppose it's something only young Imali can do, or else they altered her physiology and neurochemistry before launching her into space."

"Why?" Sophie asked.

"Would you like to spend decades being launched through space, wide awake the entire time?" the Doctor asked her, frowning.

Embarrassed, Sophie shook her head. "No, I guess not. Although sometimes that's how I feel travelling with you. You know, flying through the cosmos with no idea what's going on or where I'm headed."

Her tone was light, so the Doctor gave her a small smile. "More than a thousand years of phone box travel hasn't done anything to ease my wanderlust, I will admit. But this poor creature..."

Sophie crouched to get a better look at the chid. "She's so small. Are Imali meant to be this small?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I don't think so. I only met the Imali once, a long time ago. My companion at the time was a girl named Jo and she spent a little while as an Imali midwife. If we could ask her..."

"How did she end up as a midwife?" Sophie asked, surprised.

The Doctor shrugged. "Long story."

"All right," Sophie said, choosing to accept that weird little aside as just another of the Doctor's half-remembered, half-true tall tales, "so what do we do? I mean, we can't just leave her. Not like this. Especially if she's making that 'death' thing appear all over the place."

"That's right," the Doctor agreed, and pulled out the sonic screwdriver again. Activating it, he ran it across the surface of the pod.

"Doctor, how does that thing work?" Sophie asked.

"The sonic?" he answered. "Or the pod?"

"The sonic," she said. "I get the whole telepathic circuits thing, the point, think and click interface... but, I mean, that screwdriver can do just about whatever you want it to. I've seen it open doors, scan escape pods, track energy signatures... I've seen it do just about everything, except for actually driving screws."

"Oh," the Doctor said simply, not looking away from his scans. "It's very complicated."

"Is that Time Lord for 'I don't actually know'?" Sophie teased.

"No," he answered immediately, his tone perhaps a little too defensive. Before Sophie could push further, the Doctor pulled the screwdriver up and looked at it as its telepathic circuits poured information into his mind. "Uh oh."

"What is it?" Sophie asked, moving to stand beside him.

"The pod's varion wave drives have been overloaded," the Doctor said, frowning. "No wonder the 'death' figure was so intermittent. The varion waves were coming in fits and starts, and most of their energy was being used to keep Flossy here alive. There's no way I can fix them."

"Flossy?" Sophie asked, wondering where he'd pulled that from.

"A good name for a wayward girl, don't you think?" the Doctor said. He put the screwdriver away and rested his hands on the cool metal of the pod. Sighing, he shook his head.

"Come on, Doctor," Sophie said, nudging him. "There has to be something we can do."

The Doctor paused. "Hmm."

"What is it?" she asked, excited by the possibility that he may have solved the problem. "What are you thinking?"

"I was just wondering," the Doctor said, "when you and I became 'we'."

Sophie blinked. "Excuse me?"

"This is neither here nor there," the Doctor said, "but before I met you, I had spent a few decades travelling by myself. I shared some adventures with people, friends old and new, but none of them stuck around for long. Then, one day, I met you. Now it's... well, it's us. It's not just Sophie _and_ the Doctor, it's _Sophie and the Doctor_. Not a you and I, an us. A we."

Despite herself, despite their surroundings and her worries, she couldn't help but grin. "Yeah. We are."

"So when do you think it happened?"

"Somewhere after Ford XVII, I think," Sophie answered, remembering that fateful day she had been captured by the Daleks on the factory planet in the far future. "Starting a revolution, saving the day, freeing an entire world. Despite everything that happened, I think that was a good day."

"I think it happened after New Tokyo," the Doctor told her. "Right after we got back aboard the TARDIS and you said that, no matter what, you would stick it out. That's when I knew that I'd made the right choice inviting you aboard."

She shrugged. "That's when I knew I'd made the right choice accepting your invitation."

The Doctor grinned. "So New Tokyo it is."

Sophie returned his smile. "Sounds good to me. Now, if you don't mind, we, as in _Sophie and the Doctor_, should get back to the task at hand. If we can't fix the varion wave drive, what do we do?"

The Doctor considered. "There are a few options. We could try and separate her from the pod, but without proper medical facilities, without even the TARDIS sickbay, it's unlikely she'll survive the separation. I can try and cobble together a semi-functional drive, but there's no way of knowing if it'll work or even if she'd survive that. We can wait until the TARDIS is functional again and take her with us but there's no telling how the varions and the artron and chronon energy that suffuses the TARDIS would interact. Considering there's enough going on in the universe at large, I don't want to risk punching a TARDIS-shaped hole in the fabric of the space-time continuum. We could leave her and the pod here. Or..."

"Or?" she prompted as he trailed off.

"Or we could deactivate the pod," the Doctor answered. "Power it down."

Sophie exclaimed "She'd die!"

"We may not have another viable option," he said, and she heard the heaviness in his words. He was, she realised, exhausted and not a little defeated. "Eventually, the pod will run out of power. There's no telling what the varion waves will do between now and then and what that will mean for the child when it does happen. Bringing the pod aboard the TARDIS is dangerous, not just for us but the entire universe. Trying to fix the engine might be a fool's errand."

"So you think killing her is the only way?" Sophie, just moments ago caught in the friendly camaraderie she'd developed with the Doctor, was taken aback by just how alien he seemed now.

Perhaps because he looked so human, perhaps because he was capable of such friendliness and kindness and warmth, she always forgot that he was, in fact, an alien. She forgot that two hearts beat in his chest, she forgot that he could change his appearance at the moment of death in order to save himself. She forgot that he perceived time the way she could taste or smell. Now here he was, staring at a little girl and, with a cold, hateful detachment, was explaining why letting her die was the best thing to do.

"It seems to be," the Doctor said, squaring his shoulders.

"No," Sophie said, injecting as much force into her tone as she could. "No. I'm not going to let you."

He looked at her, eyebrow arched. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Sophie said, and she clamped a hand on the Doctor's shoulder. "I'm not going to let you leave her here to die."

"Sophie..."

"No," she pressed, using her other hand to tilt his face until he was looking her right in the eyes. She saw her face reflected in the lens, saw how tired she looked. More than that, though, she saw how impossibly, incredibly ancient the Doctor really was. How alien. "If you don't help her... if you don't help her, then when you get back in the TARDIS you can leave me here with her."

The Doctor blinked. "Sophie, she tried to kill you."

"Her dreams tried to kill me, Doctor," Sophie answered, releasing the Doctor and walking away from him. She watched the storm beat against their safe haven and, despite herself, began to tremble. Unbidden, memories of her life as an orphan, shuttled from foster home to foster home with no anchor, nothing to keep her stable, nothing to rely upon or truly love, flooded through her mind. "She's a baby. She has no idea what she's doing. She has no idea where she is or what's happening to her and you know what? I understand that. That was me, for fifteen years of my life."

"I can't leave you here," was all he said.

"Then you'd better figure out a way to save her," she said. "Because if you don't, there's no way I could keep travelling with you. No way."

They stared each other down, the pod between them.

Barely restrained fury flashed through the Doctor's expression. "Sophie, I am a Time Lord. I have been doing this for centuries. This is what _I have to do_! This is my job, my life! I have to make hard decisions and sometimes that means... sometimes that means _doing this_!"

His voice had risen to a roar as he spoke but Sophie was unbowed.

"No it doesn't!" she answered, shouting back. "It doesn't _have to_! You are making a choice. You are choosing to take the easy way out. I never, ever thought I would see this coming from you, Doctor."

His eyes burnt with anger. "You're just a human. It's cruel of me to expect you to understand."

It took Sophie a split second to get across the distance between them. She moved to slap him but he batted her hand aside. They glared at each other, her lips trembling. She wasn't scared or sad, however: she was simply livid. She had never hated another person as much as she hated the Doctor in that moment.

"What the hell was that meant to mean?" Sophie demanded.

"I don't have any other option!"

"Yes you do!" she shot back. "You do! You could say 'screw the risk' and take her with us on the TARDIS. You could at least try to remove her from the pod. You could try and build the engine. You could do anything! You're the Doctor! You're choosing this."

The Doctor swallowed. He looked away.

"Doctor," she said, changing tack. "Please."

Her single plaintive word drew his gaze back to her. "I can't, Sophie. Don't you see? The wave that forced us to crash here... it was only the tip of the temporal iceberg. These waves will tear through the universe and keep tearing until there's nothing left. We could be witnessing the end of the universe and I..."

In that second, she understood. "You don't want her to suffer."

"No," the Doctor answered. His voice was flat, lifeless. Resigned. "I don't."

"Then save her," Sophie said. "Figure out a way. Find a way to save that little girl, then we'll take her somewhere safe, then we'll figure out what's causing those waves and we'll stop it. You and me. Sophie and the Doctor."

"Saviours of the universe," the Doctor said quietly.

"Saving people is what we do," Sophie said, and she touched his arm. "Doctor, I know you're scared. I know you're scared in a way I can't understand for reasons I can't fully comprehend. That's fine, whatever; but I also know you. I know that sometimes you need a push in the right direction. That's why I'm here. That's why you need me."

"Yes," the Doctor agreed. He smiled for the briefest moment, before something seemed to occur to him. "I... Sophie, there's something I have to tell you."

She nodded. "All right, Doctor. But let's get little Flossy out of here first."

* * *

><p>Morning came in fits and starts over the island. The storm had died away a few hours before the sun came up, leaving only a heavy fog. The house rose like a tall, dark ghost through the mist and Sophie couldn't help but shiver as she looked at its faded form. She couldn't wait to get away from this place, to leave it and its haunting far behind.<p>

Still, she knew, far greater challenges awaited she and the Doctor.

She no longer wore the Doctor's coat, which was instead bundled in her arms. A tiny, slowly moving form shifted inside the bundle and Sophie reached down with a finger to move part of the coat beside. Wrapped up inside it was the little Imali girl, Flossy, released from the confines of her travel pod thanks to the Doctor's skill and good luck.

The Doctor himself had ducked inside the TARDIS, which lay about a metre away from Sophie and the child, to make sure its internal dimensions had repaired themselves.

Getting Flossy out of the pod had been a nail-biting operation, with the Doctor having to individually sever each of the connections and finally shut down the pod in order to disconnect it from her brain. They'd immediately wrapped her in the Doctor's coat and by then the storm had ended. They'd spent the remaining time until morning huddled beside each other in the widow's tower, watching the little girl sleep.

Their argument had been forgotten and they had shared their friendship in silence.

As the sun had started to come up, the Doctor had led the way back down to TARDIS, waiting for them on the beach. He had to lower himself into the control room, since the TARDIS had crashed on its side.

"Got it!" she heard him shout from inside.

An ethereal, otherworldly gust picked up, forcing Sophie to step back from the TARDIS and wrap Flossy even tighter in the coat. The great blue box began to fade in and out of existence, the familiar wheezing, grinding groan of its engines singing out in time. Finally, the box disappeared entirely as the wind died away. Sophie felt, much to her surprise, a bizarre sense of longing.

Immediately, though, the wind picked up again.

First to appear was the light atop the TARDIS, which flashed in time with the sound of the engines. Within moments, the ship, tall, blue and apparently made of wood and glass, coalesced into a physical form.

The door opened and the Doctor stepped out, looking quite pleased with himself.

He was also, Sophie noticed, wearing fresh clothes.

"How long were you gone for?" was the first thing she asked as he welcomed her into the TARDIS. She was glad to be back in the vaulted control room, with its faintly glowing gold, bronze and burnished orange bulkheads and multitudes of differently sized roundels.

The Doctor closed and locked the door behind her and led her back up to the six-sided console as he answered. "Just a few hours. I wanted to pick something up for little Flossy."

On the other side of the console from the door, bathed in the blue-green light of the time rotor, was an antique cradle, trimmed with lace and featuring a mobile with dangling replicas of the TARDIS.

Sophie grinned and carried the tiny girl over to it, lowering her sleeping form onto the little mattress. The Doctor placed a blanket, the same shade of blue as the TARDIS, over her. The blue complemented her lavender skin.

"What's the plan now?" Sophie asked.

"I located a small colony of Imali in the Hydra Epsilon Configuration," the Doctor said. "I'm sure they'll be happy to welcome one lost lamb back to the flock."

Reaching out, Sophie took the Doctor's hand and squeezed it. "You did it, Doctor. You saved her."

He shook his head gently and said, "No, Sophie. _We_ did."


	58. In Media Res: 7

**'In Media Res'**

7. _Revelations  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>NEW IMAL<strong>  
><strong>YEAR OF COLONISATION .44<strong>

* * *

><p>New Imal, as the Imali colonists had named their adopted homeworld, was a beautiful planet. Carpeted with lush jungle and well-manicured parkland and dominated by shallow, purple-tinged oceans, it featured a small brood of moons and cities of tall, glittering towers that put Sophie in mind, disconcertingly enough, of New Tokyo.<p>

"Ready to go?" the Doctor asked her as she looked over the vista offered by the planet's capital city. They'd just delivered Flossy to a hospital, where they'd been greeted as heroes for returning a lost child back to her people. The doctor that had taken temporary custody of the baby had promised to find her a good home and the Doctor had promised to come back from time to time to check on her, which probably wasn't meant to have sounded as threatening as it did.

"Absolutely," Sophie said.

They'd spent a day relaxing at a seaside resort, all expenses paid by the New Imal government in return for their services to the Imali people, but now they were back at the TARDIS.

The Doctor pushed unlocked the door and led the way inside.

Sophie followed. It had been nice getting some time away from the chaos that was to come, but the Doctor had been worried and distracted the entire time. As her friend Leisel might have said, there was some bad juju out there in the universe and for the Doctor and Sophie the time had come to face the future.

"Where to now?" Sophie asked, joining the Doctor at the console.

"Same place we were headed to before the wave hit the TARDIS," the Doctor explained, slamming down levers and flicking switches on the ship's six-sided console. "The Geranium Collection."

"Don't we have to figure out what's, you know, _destroying_ _the universe_?" Sophie asked. "What do we need with a historical database?"

The Doctor didn't answer, just offering her a little smile as he slammed down one last lever and the TARDIS dematerialised, leaving New Imal and Flossy behind.

* * *

><p><strong>THE GERANIUM COLLECTION<strong>  
><strong>UNKNOWN YEAR<strong>

* * *

><p>Wilso Hollis, security consultant, wasn't impressed with his assignment. The Geranium Collection was, for all intents and purposes, a museum. An unusual museum, yes, and that would attract all manner of thieves and spies were it not so far from civilisation. And if, it was anything, the Geranium Collection was far from civilisation.<p>

Hollis sat in a small room barely the size of a broom cupboard, surrounded by small screens that displayed security feeds from through the Collection's central archive.

He was one of fifty security consultants, glorified beat cops, hired to oversee the planetwide security systems that protected the Collection and its universally renowned archives. There was only one way to approach the unnamed planet where the Collection was located, with the entire system encased in a shell of gravitic mines and automatic laser turrets protecting every inbound vector save for one.

That vector, Vector Zero, was guarded by an _Ominous_-class dreadnaught.

No one and nothing was coming to the Collection without the express, written permission of Professor Geranium Wynters, for whom the Collection had been named. Nothing, of course, except for a tall blue box that appeared out of nowhere on the sixth floor of the main archive.

It shimmered in and out of existence on one of the screens Hollis had been assigned to watch and his mind raced. He'd been warned about this box, had been ordered to contact Professor Wynter immediately should that box appear.

He immediately grabbled his commlink and called for the professor.

"_Yes?_" came her imperious voice, sounding less than impressed at having been interrupted. "_What is it?_"

"Professor Wynters, it's Consultant Hollis," Hollis said, hoping she'd remember him. "A tall blue box just materialised in the western corridor on floor six of the central archive. It's not transmitting any authorisation."

"_A blue box?_" Wynters said, sounding surprised. "_Another one?_"

"Uh," Hollis said, "I don't know if there are any others. I'm watching the central archive today, ma'am, this is the first I've seen."

"_It's fine, Mr. Hollis,_" Wynters said. "_Seal off the floor. No one gets in or out except for me. I'm on my way now._"

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Would you like an escort?"

"_No, Mr. Hollis. The Doctor is an old friend of mine._"

With that, the professor signed off, leaving Hollis to wonder at what the hell was happening. If it was so easy for someone to get past all those security systems, what was the point of them? What was the point of him? Trapped in a moment of existential despair, he watched helplessly as a tall man in a dark coat and a short, willowy-thin woman stepped out of the blue box into the sterile white corridor on the sixth floor of the central archive.

* * *

><p>"Your friend named this place after herself?" Sophie asked, stepping out of the TARDIS after the Doctor and looking around at their surroundings.<p>

"No, no, no," the Doctor said. "Her father was the lead archivist on the project when it was first set up. It was his brainchild, his metaphorical baby... so he named it after his literal baby. His one and only child, Geranium."

"Corridors. How original." Sophie said as she beheld the plain white stretches of hallway that led away from them. "This doesn't look like a library or a museum or an archive. Not even a 'collection'."

"Well, you know me," the Doctor said. "I like to make an inconspicuous entry."

"As inconspicuous as a big blue box making a lot of noise and whipping up a squall as it appears out of nowhere can be, I suppose," Sophie agreed. "So what makes the Collection so special? Why have we come here?"

"The location," the Doctor explained, leading the way down the corridor. "The Geranium Collection rests on a still point in space and time. Almost like a millpond, immune to the ripples of the surrounding universe. Much like the Zero Room aboard the TARDIS but on a cosmic scale."

"Lucky," Sophie said as they reached a hatchway.

The Doctor examined the controls as he answered. "It had nothing to do with luck. You see, when information is stored at the quantum level, there's always the possibility of a particle changing spontaneously on the quantum scale. The odds of that happening are minuscule, infinitesimal, but over the centuries? The millennia? Millions or billions of years? Information gets lost, corrupted, destroyed. Not so here. Here, time and space are calm. There's no quantum drift."

"Let me guess," Sophie said, nodding, "you helped your friend's dad locate this part of space?"

"No, no," the Doctor said, "he found it himself. I just helped them out with building the joint. I was a different man back then. Obsessed with being weird. I even wore a bowtie."

Sophie shuddered theatrically. "Good God."

"To be fair to me, I thought I was going to die," the Doctor said.

"What do you mean?"

"It doesn't matter," the Doctor answered, and the door slid open. He stepped inside, Sophie following closely. She gasped as she stepped into the enormous, octagonal room beyond. It was cavernous, absolutely huge, with rows upon rows of computer screens arrayed in concentric eight-sided shapes centred around an enormous blue, red and green pulsing pillar of holographic light, struck through with constantly altering characters and sigils.

It seemed to Sophie almost a waterfall of light, and she was reminded of Kar-Charrat.

"What is that?" Sophie said, awestruck by the sight.

"The pillar? That's a vacuum suspended data cascade," the Doctor said. "All the knowledge of the universe is contained in that cascade and the others like it spread throughout this facility."

"Uh, then why did we bother going to all those places?" Sophie asked, stepping towards the cascade. "If everything is in there..."

"Because I like to get my information from many different sources," the Doctor answered. "Besides, I helped design and build the cascades. Who knows what informational biases I may have allowed to creep into them."

Sophie sighed. She'd gotten an answer, but something told her that he wasn't being entirely honest. "Yeah, okay. Is that the only reason?"

The Doctor's cheeks reddened. "Well, no. Geranium and I parted on... less than agreeable terms."

Sophie's eyes widened and she grinned. "Oh my God, Doctor, I do believe you're blushing."

"I am not," he snapped, though his cheeks only grew rosier.

"Did you have a bit of a crush on her, Doctor?" Sophie pressed, her tone light and gently mocking, but she was definitely curious to obtain a greater understanding of the Doctor's life before she'd met him.

"Of course not," he answered. "Well, yes. But she had a crush on me, too! We travelled together off and on for a time."

"How long of a time?"

"About thirty years for her," the Doctor answered. "About three hundred for me."

"Oh my God, you were basically married!" Sophie said, unable to believe her ears. "Doctor and Geranium, sitting in a tree..."

"No, no, we were never married," he said, shaking his head. "I was already married."

Sophie blinked. She'd just been kidding. "You were married?"

"Still am, I guess," the Doctor said, still not looking up from the screen. "It's been a while since I saw her last, though."

"How does your wife feel about you gallivanting around the galaxy with lots of other women?" Sophie said, genuinely curious.

"I'll stop when she does," the Doctor said, his tone carrying with it a hint of finality. He was obviously not interested in continuing the discussion further. Despite the fact that she yearned to know more, Sophie decided to focus on their immediate situation.

"All right, then, Doctor. What are we going to do now?"

"The archives should have information on what's happening to the universe," the Doctor explained, "and, being located in a still point, they should be unaffected by the waves damaging time and space. The information here should not have been altered yet."

"So we'll use the archives to pinpoint where the cataclysm started," Sophie surmised.

"Exactly," the Doctor answered, leading her over to one of the computer terminals. He took out his sonic screwdriver. "Just need to trick the computer into believing I have administrator privileges... and I'm in."

The screen flared to life and began to flick through pages of information at an astonishing rate. Sophie blinked. "Can you read that?"

"I don't need to," the Doctor said. "It's just warranty information, privacy agreements, terms of use contracts. The usual stuff. The stuff no one reads. But to answer your question, yes I can."

Sophie laughed. "On my computer back home, there was something wrong with the iTunes. Every time I opened it, I had to click the box saying that I'd read the terms of service. Never once did, mind you."

"Of course not," the Doctor said. "Same thing happens whenever I upgrade my sonic screwdriver."

Sophie decided not to press that any further, the screwdriver being a constant source of confusion, and instead focus on their current plans. "All right, so... you said that you figured out the waves were being generated from a point in our future. What's the plan? Avoid causing them to begin with, or go in and try to stop whatever it is that's causing it?"

"Both," the Doctor said. "Neither."

"Thanks for being clear," she joked.

"Well, what I mean to say is that I'm not sure yet. Avoiding the event that causes all of this may well lead to triggering it to begin with," he explained. "By the same token, trying to stop it may make it worse. What we need to do is consider all the options and approach it carefully."

"That's not really your style is it, Doctor?" a new voice bellowed through the chamber.

Sophie jumped but the Doctor looked up from his work with a smile, as though he'd been expecting to hear just that. They turned to see a tall, regal woman in her mid-sixties stride towards them. She had shoulder-length grey-blonde hair, immaculately styled. She was quite striking and would have been impossibly beautiful in her youth.

She wore cream britches, what looked like riding boots and an off-white sweater. For all the world, she looked like a lady of leisure who'd just come back from the country club, but her steel-blue eyes blazed with intelligence. She had aristocratic features and the bearing of the supremely confident.

"Geranium Wynters," the Doctor said, slipping past Sophie and embracing the woman.

Sophie was surprised to see her hug the Doctor back with a great deal of warmth. She'd found herself expecting Geranium to be somewhat standoffish.

"That's _Professor_ Geranium Wynters," she correctly gently. "It's good to see you, Doctor. Though, I must admit, somewhat of a surprise. How much do you know?"

The Doctor shot Sophie a confused look before saying "How much do I know about what?"

Geranium frowned slightly, surveying him. She said nothing else and after a long minute turned to Sophie, extending her hand. "Where are my manners? Welcome to the Geranium Archive. I'm Geranium Wynters. You must be the newest model."

"Excuse me?" Sophie said, taken aback. She had taken Geranium's hand in a friendly shake but now let her grip grow slack.

"The latest companion," Geranium said. "Every now and then, he trades us in for an upgrade. Isn't that right, Doctor?"

The Time Lord was blushing furiously. "I don't know what you mean!"

"Uh, I'm not a car?" Sophie said, trying to stamp down on the offence rising within her.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't meant to cause any offence," Geranium said, though that was cold comfort to Sophie, especially when she turned to the Doctor and added "Doesn't she know about the rest of us?"

Sophie couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Excuse you!"

Geranium, far from being perturbed, offered Sophie a warm smile that did a lot to calm her. "It's all right, dear, I'm just teasing the Doctor. It's awfully easy to get under his skin when you know the right buttons to push."

Sophie, despite herself, laughed. "Yeah. Just try asking him about you. He gets all flustered."

"I really shouldn't let my companions meet," the Doctor said, mostly to himself. "Whenever a few of you get together, you spend the whole time making fun of me."

"Oh, buck up," Sophie said, letting go of Geranium's hand and nudging him. "You're weird. We love it. Besides, between running for our lives from Daleks and trying to save the universe, it's not like we get that much time for humour."

"Indeed!" Geranium agreed. "Although, having said that, there is an emergent crisis, Doctor."

"That's why we're here," Sophie said.

"Exactly," the Doctor nodded. "We were on our way here when a temporal wave forced us to crash land sometime in Earth's past."

Geranium, who until that moment Sophie had thought to be human, quirked an eyebrow. "You can never get away from that boring little world can you, Doctor?"

"Excuse me," Sophie interjected, "but that 'boring little world' is my home?"

"Mine too," Geranium said, inclining her head, "but the universe is much larger than that primitive blue world."

"I like it," the Doctor said, silencing further argument. "I decided to come here and try and track down the cause of the waves. They're doing untold damage to the cosmos even as we stand here."

"Indeed they are," Geranium nodded. "My people have been tracking this crisis as it has developed. You're not the only person to come here looking for answers."

"How do you mean?" the Doctor asked. "I thought you guys liked your privacy around here."

Geranium nodded. "We do. Listen, how about you start your research? I've already keyed in the appropriate permissions. You'll be able to access the TARDIS' databanks through the archive wifi. I've even opened a system for Sophie to use, if she wants to."

Sophie was pleasantly surprised. "Thanks. I didn't think you knew I was here."

"My security people saw you arrive," Geranium explained. "I've come to expect to see the Doctor travelling with at least one companion."

Sophie smiled. "Well, thanks."

"And while I'm researching?" the Doctor interrupted before Geranium and Sophie could say any more. "What will you be doing?"

"There's someone I want you to meet," Geranium said. "You get to work. I'll bring him down here."

"All right," the Doctor said, nodding. "Who is it?"

"You'll see," was all she said. She nodded politely to Sophie and patted the Doctor on the arm. "I'll see the two of you soon. I beg your pardon."

With that, she turned and quickly left the chamber.

"Well," Sophie said, considering the encounter. "That was weird."

"That's Geranium," the Doctor said with a shrug. He turned back to the computer screen, and found that he now had unlimited access to the entire system. "Endlessly clever, not a little weird. She reminds me of me."

"What do you want me to do, Doctor?" Sophie asked, deciding to let his little ego trip go for a while. She filed it away, though, intending to tease him about it later.

The Doctor shrugged. "Uh, whatever you want. Is there anything you're interested in? Take a seat at one of the consoles, treat the archive like Google. An entire universe's worth of knowledge is waiting for you."

Sophie grinned, energised by the thought. "That sounds pretty cool."

"Oh, it's absolutely genius," the Doctor agreed.

"A bit like you?" she teased, but as the Doctor came up with a retort she retreated to console and found it responded to her touch immediately.

The screen displayed a blue background with a search bar in the centre. A holographic keyboard was projected into the air before her. She was surprised at first, unsure about what to do with this, before she realised that it was laid out in the QWERTY format and that just brushing one of the holographic characters with her finger was enough to type a letter.

"Do me a favour," the Doctor called to her from his console.

"And what's that, Doctor?"

"Avoid your subjective future, will you? Don't look at the twenty-first century," he said. "You don't want to see any major spoilers."

"What if I do?" she complained.

The Doctor stood and peered at her, shooting her a quick frown. "Sophie."

"I know, I know," she chortled. "I'll avoid the twenty-first century."

She cast around for something to search for, when the most obvious possible answer occurred to her. She typed in her name: SOPHIE FREEMAN. Before she could hit the return key, though, a menu superimposed itself over the screen. It asked her to select a date range.

Deciding to follow the Doctor's orders, she set the date to before 2001. A second screen asked her to input some geographical details: planet, location on that planet, stuff like that. Finally, she hit enter.

There were many results, but only the first four drew her attention. One was a notice of birth, published in a newspaper on the day she'd been born in 1991. She smiled despite the bittersweet memories that generated of her parents. The second was her birth certificate. Unbidden, tears began to well up in her eyes. She wiped them away and prepared herself for what the final two results.

No amount of preparation could have saved her from the deep, resounding horror she encountered as she read them.

Her jaw dropped.

The last result was a record of burial from a cemetery in Tamworth. It was dated from 1996. The third result, however, was a small article from a local paper. Sophie remembered, in bursts of image and sensation, the many dreams she'd had of the car crash that had killed her parents. She remembered the fear, the clawing desperation. She remembered watching the crash unfold in the dreamscape created by the member of the Trickster's Brigade that had latched onto her when she'd first met the Doctor.

That article, which she read once, twice, three times and again before the reality of its text sunk in, told her something she now realised she'd always thought.

The Protocol had been right. She, Sophie Freeman, was meant to have been killed on election day in 1996. She couldn't cry, she couldn't move. She could barely breathe. She read the article over and over again and she knew it was true. She was meant to be dead.


	59. In Media Res: 8

**'In Media Res'**

8. _The End of Everything  
><em>

* * *

><p>As if in a daze, Sophie stood from her console and walked over to the Doctor. She felt like a ghost, as though everything was separated from her by some kind of veil. Her own breathing, rapid and ragged, was all she could hear. The Doctor, hunched over his console, was all she could see. Everything else felt so distant as to be practically unreal.<p>

She didn't so much walk as glide over to the Doctor.

He looked up at her as she approached, offering her an easy smile. She hated him for it. Fury gripped her, anger overwhelming every other sensation, all emotion, until she was nothing but a figure of rage.

She wanted to kill him.

All she said was "Did you know?"

The Doctor blinked. "Did I know what?"

"I died," Sophie answered. Her tone was flat.

"No, you didn't," the Doctor insisted. "My regeneration energy healed you. You're fine."

"No!" Sophie spat, unable to contain her emotions. "Not then! When I was five. When I was five years old, my parents died in an accident and I was meant to die, too!"

"Oh, Sophie," the Doctor said.

"You knew," she concluded, setting her jaw. "You knew this whole time, didn't you? And when the Protocol showed me the article I just read, the article that proves I was meant to die, you lied to me! You said the Protocol had made it up. But you knew."

The Doctor stood and looked down. "Yes."

"You bastard!" Sophie screeched. She was quaking bodily. "You miserable son of a bitch. You lied to me! You promised you wouldn't. You promised! I trusted you."

The Doctor swallowed. "I know."

"Then why did you lie?"

"I didn't know what else to do," the Doctor said. "I saw it the moment I met you. You were something different, something else. Something other. My sense of time, my perception of its passage and paths, was distorted. I didn't understand why."

"It was because I'm alive," Sophie said, "when I'm supposed to be dead."

"Yes," the Doctor nodded, "but I don't believe that's necessarily the case."

"That article," Sophie said, gesturing vaguely back to the computer. "There was a certificate of burial, too."

"Yes," the Doctor repeated, "but it isn't that simple. For all I know, Sophie, time is in flux around you! The moment of your death may not be a fixed point in history."

She wanted to scream. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means that time my be fracturing," the Doctor insisted. "There could be two or more alternate paths that time is meant to take. You may have been meant to die, or you may have been meant to live or maybe something else entirely! I just can't know."

"And in the meantime, what am I? Some stray puppy you've brought along? Some charity case?" Sophie demanded.

The Doctor had the temerity to look hurt. In a small voice he said "You're my friend."

"Friends don't lie to one another," Sophie answered, words full of cold venom. Suddenly, she began to laugh. It was deep, shuddering, painful laughter that drove the air from her lungs and nearly forced her to her knees.

The Doctor blinked.

The laughter dissolved into sobs and she began to hyperventilate, thoughts running through her head at the speed of light. She had thought, after fifteen years of drifting along in life with no real connections, that she'd finally found, in the Doctor, someone to share her life with. A partner, a... a soulmate. In an instant that connection had collapsed.

Tears streamed down her cheeks and the Doctor went to comfort her. She pushed him away, growling a cold "Don't."

Struggling to bring her breathing under control, she fought to wipe away tears.

She forced her eyes closed, sucking in deep, comforting breaths. A yawning chasm had opened up inside her and she felt that, if she wasn't careful, she would disappear into it and be lost forever.

"Sophie," the Doctor said, layering his voice with a calming tone. "Please, listen to me."

She opened her eyes and fixed him with her hardest gaze. She realised he had taken half a step towards her but, off of her expression, had frozen in his tracks.

"Are we interrupting something?"

Sophie almost sighed with consternation. The last person in the universe she wanted to see at that moment was the infuriatingly superior Geranium Wynters, who had chosen that moment to return to the archive chamber.

"You are, as a matter of fact," Sophie spat, her rage suddenly directed towards the interloper. "If you could just give us, oh I don't know, a week?"

"I'm afraid we haven't time for that," another voice answered.

Sophie and the Doctor turned as one, both their jaws dropping open. "What the hell are you doing here?" the Doctor demanded.

"I was about to ask you the same question," the second new arrival answered.

"How is that possible?" Sophie asked, her anger and disgust forgotten for the moment in the face of the miraculous

"It shouldn't be," the Doctor answered. "It... it shouldn't be."

"He arrived just before you did," Geranium supplied.

"I would appreciate it if you didn't talk about as though I wasn't here," said a man who looked, sounded and dressed identically to the Doctor. He was very tall and broad-shouldered, with a mop of brown hair and dark intelligent, ancient eyes. Most disconcertingly for Sophie, he wore the Doctor's familiar long black coat. She could almost feel that coat wrapped tightly around his shoulders. His gaze fell upon her. "You must be Sophie Freeman."

Sophie quickly wiped away the last of her tears.

"Doctor," she said, staring at the new arrival but addressing her own Doctor, "who is he?"

The new arrival gave a small, eerily familiar smile. "Sophie, I know this might be confusing, but I'm him. He's me. I'm the Doctor. Just like he is."

She ignored him, snapping around to look at the original Doctor. "Is he really?"

The Doctor swallowed. "Yes. He is."

"Oh, great," Sophie answered, fury welling up inside her again. "That's the last thing I need. Two of you. Two Doctors."

"Trust me," Geranium interjected, apparently missing the emotional subtext of Sophie's statement, "it's not as fun as it sounds."

"This shouldn't be possible," Sophie's Doctor reiterated. "How are you here?"

"The universe is collapsing, Doctor," the other Doctor replied. "The walls between realities are falling. Timelines are coexisting and overlapping."

"I know," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "I just didn't know it was this bad."

The other Doctor pursed his lips and his expression, previously light and pleasant, grew immeasurably grim. "It's worse. I'm not a past version of you, nor am I a future version of you."

"An alternate Doctor," the Doctor surmised.

"What does that mean?" Sophie piped up.

Geranium interposed herself between the other Doctor and Sophie and offered the young woman a comforting arm. "I understand your confusion. It must be difficult for you to understand."

"Oh, it's not confusing, you condescending old bat," Sophie said, rolling her eyes. Pointing first to the Doctor she was familiar with, and then his doppelganger, she said "_He's_ my Doctor, _he's_ a Doctor from an alternate timeline. I'm asking what the difference is. What makes that timeline alternate?"

The other Doctor, impressed by her moxie and ignoring a nonplussed Geranium, said to Sophie "The difference is you."

"Me?" Sophie repeated.

"I come from a timeline where we..." Trailing off, the new Doctor sighed out through his teeth. "I come from a timeline where we never met. Where we never travelled together. Because, in that timeline, you died when you were five."

"Like I was meant to," Sophie concluded. Her tone surprised even her: she was simply stating a fact, any hint of emotion disappearing.

Geranium turned to Sophie, jaw dropping. Comprehension dawned and any hard feelings she might have head towards Sophie evaporated in an instant. "Oh, Sophie..."

"No," the other Doctor answered. "You're a paradox, Sophie Freeman. You're alive when you're meant to be dead, dead when you're meant to be alive. Nothing about you makes sense. But whatever it is that's happening, it's centred around you. And unless the four of us can figure out what to do, all of time and space will be destroyed."

Her own Doctor spoke up now. "And everything will end."

* * *

><p><strong>The story continues in 'The Life and Death of Sophie Freeman'<strong>

**COMING SOON**


	60. The Life and Death of Sophie Freeman: 1

**'The Life and Death of Sophie Freeman'**

1. _Death  
><em>

* * *

><p>The receptionist looked up from her computer screen when the bell above the door dinged to announce the entrance of a guest. She put her most commiserate smile as the tall man carefully closed the door behind him and stepped over to her. He was carrying a bunch of flowers, a dozen long-stemmed roses wrapped in lilac-coloured paper, and had the air of someone who felt lost.<p>

It was a sight she knew all too well.

The reception area was a small demountable building on the edge of the cemetery, divided into a pair of rooms. One of these served as a small lounge for visitors and it was in here the receptionist sat. It was tastefully decorated and air conditioned, which suited her just fine. The other room was the office of the cemetery's director.

"How can I help you today, sir?" she said, subtly turning her screen away from his line of sight. It would do her no good to have a member of the public see that she spent most of her day playing solitaire.

"I'm looking for a particular grave," the man said, and reached into the pocket of the long, dark coat he wore.

The receptionist blinked at his wardrobe choice. The day outside was typically scorching for mid February, and that coat was completely unseasonable. He didn't seem bothered by it, though. He didn't even seem to be sweating.

"I'd be happy to help, sir," she answered, and turned to the computer. She switched from the game of solitaire she'd been playing to the database of grave locations. "Can you give me the name of your loved one, please?"

The man was looking down at a small piece of paper he had retrieved from his pocket. He was smiling, though; a small, regretful smile.

"Loved one?" he said, more to himself than to her. "I don't think I even knew her."

That intrigued her, but she'd been doing the job long enough to know to be tactful. When she spoke, her tone was as kind and understanding as she could manage. "Do you have the name, sir?"

"Oh," he said, and handed her the piece of paper. "Here you go."

The receptionist typed the name into the database, and the location of the deceased's grave came up on screen a few moments later. She printed it out, and handed him the information. "There's a map outside, sir. If I could just get your name?"

The man, tall and broad-shouldered, with a mop of dark brown hair, looked at her closely. For a second, she lost her breath. The intensity of his gaze and the unspeakable age in his eyes shocked her. She had been here long enough and dealt with enough people mourning their loved ones to recognise when someone was intimately familiar with death. This man, she could tell, had encountered that particular spectre far too often.

"Just put me down as the Doctor," he said, sounding infinitely tired and all too sad.

"Doctor who?"

He shook his head. "Just the Doctor."

The receptionist frowned. "I'm afraid I don't understand. Were you the deceased's doctor? The family doctor?"

He gave a regretful grimace. "I suppose you could say that. Thank you very much for your help. I'm sorry, I didn't get your name?"

"Tanya," she said.

The Doctor tipped his head towards her. "Thank you very much for your help, Tanya."

With that, he turned on his heel, flowers in one hand and the print out she'd given him in the other. The bell jingled as he closed the door behind him.

Looking around the cemetery, the Doctor closed his eyes. He'd read that the funeral, the burial plots and the coffins had been paid for by a heartbroken community that had rallied together in the face of an unspeakable tragedy. They'd chosen a nice place to lay the family to rest.

The cemetery sat on the edge of town, and had started as a simple church graveyard over a hundred years before. It had since expanded, and the church had been converted into a chapel for wakes and brief burial services. Now, the cemetery spilled over into beautifully landscaped and well-trimmed lawns, studded with gravestones, plaques and the occasional modest mausoleum. The area he was looking for was one of the newer additions to the cemetery.

He'd landed his TARDIS near the reception demountable, but outside the cemetery. Already, he longed to be back aboard her. Something about his surroundings was making him incredibly uncomfortable, and it wasn't the mere presence of death. He'd seen and felt and experienced so much death in his time that it no longer disturbed him like it once had.

He wanted to go back to the TARDIS, to close the door behind him and disappear into space and time. Find somewhere else to be, somewhere far away from here.

But, he knew, the feelings would chase him, no matter where he went.

Something felt very, very wrong. He'd had a niggling sensation at the back of his mind for weeks now, perhaps even months. It had started when he'd landed in Newcastle, Australia, in a timeframe contemporaneous with the timeframe he was standing in now. He'd found a member of the Trickster's Brigade that had starved itself to death in the elevator of a half-occupied old apartment building. It had only gotten worse when he'd gone to the planet New Tokyo, and worse still when he'd paid a visit to Galileo Galilei.

Everything had only gotten worse when he'd fought the Daleks on the planet Ford XVII. The outcome of that little adventure had been an absolute disaster. A girl named Cassia had died in his arms, and he'd been forced to allow a man named Raflog to destroy the planet's atmosphere to defeat the Daleks and prevent them from using it as a tool of conquest.

Nothing that had happened was supposed to have happened.

He knew that. He could feel it in his bones, in his hearts. He was a Time Lord, and he had a sense of time the same way other sentient species had senses of sight or touch. He could hear the passage of time, smell it, sense it. He could see all that is, all that could be, all that _should_ be.

And nothing that had happened _should_ have happened. At least not the way it had.

Whenever he stepped out of the TARDIS, he expected someone to be following him. Whenever he stood in the console room, he turned to someone who wasn't there to ask them where they wanted to go next. Whenever he arrived on a new world, met a new lifeform, stepped into the depths of the past, he wanted to tell someone all about it.

He had travelled with other companions, long ago, but he'd been with himself for so long now. At least, he thought he had. There was something missing from his travels, someone missing from the TARDIS. When shockwaves had torn through the Time Vortex and forced his ship to crash land on an island off the coast of northern Scotland, he'd realised that something truly horrible was happening.

His senses had brought him here.

Time was cracking like the surface of a frozen lake, and this location was one of three nexus points. He hadn't been able to locate the other two, but he knew they were out there. Worse, he couldn't understand what was happening.

Finally, he found the gravesite.

It was located beneath a tall ghost gum. The beautiful, white-barked tree seemed to hang over the graves beneath it like a mourner at a funeral. There were flowerbeds and freshly cut grass. The Doctor clutched the flowers he'd brought with him to his chest, and sighed as he approached the graves.

He had never met the three people buried here. He'd never heard their names or seen their faces or known their smiles. There was a feeling, though, somewhere outside the reaches of his understanding and comprehension that told him that at least one of these people was very important to him. Or, at least, should have been important to him.

He placed the flowers beside the graves.

Instead of headstones, the graves were marked by simple, tasteful bronze plaques. Two, about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, sat side by side while a third, smaller than the others, sat slightly off to the side. It was this third that the Doctor was drawn to.

He sighed when he read it.

**SOPHIE FREEMAN  
><strong>**b. 1991 – d. 1996  
><strong>**AN ANGEL LOST TOO SOON**

"No," he whispered to himself. "This is wrong."

And it was wrong. He knew that as surely as he knew anything. Sophie Freeman, whoever she was, was not supposed to be dead. She was not supposed to have died at the age of five. Everything about this was so wrong.

He closed his eyes, and reached out with his senses. Time was splintering but everything was so murky. He couldn't see where everything was leading.

But he had to find out. And he'd have to do it soon. Turning on his heel, he walked back to the TARDIS as quickly as he could, a plan and a destination starting to form in his mind: he was heading for the Geranium Collection, and he was going to find Sophie Freeman.


	61. The Life and Death of Sophie Freeman: 2

**'The Life and Death of Sophie Freeman'**

2. _Life  
><em>

* * *

><p>"And here I am," the other Doctor finished, folding his hands on the conference table before him.<p>

The Doctor listened intently to his alternate timeline counterpart's story but he was unable to take his eyes from his companion. Sophie Freeman was, for all intents and purposes, a healthy, beautiful twenty year old woman, but the web of time didn't seem to agree. The Doctor, his counterpart, Sophie and his former companion, Professor Geranium Wynters, had stepped away from the massive archive chamber where, just moments before, Sophie had learnt that history had recorded her death as a five year old, fifteen years before she ever met the Doctor.

The four of them were now sitting at a table in a private reading room arranged for them by Geranium, the proprietress and chief archivist of the planetwide Geranium Archives, which had been named for her by her father, Sophie on one side with Geranium hugging her. The Doctor and his doppelganger were sitting on opposite sides of the table.

Sophie, shaken, had overcome the worst of her shock at learning about the Doctor's deception, but he could still feel waves of resentment and anger rolling off of her.

The Doctor forced his attention back to the other Doctor.

"Your sense of time has been off, then," he concluded.

"Indeed," his counterpart nodded. "There's been something clouding my judgment, fudging my perceptions. When I landed on Ford XVII, I didn't even realise that the Daleks had been messing with the timeline until it was almost too late."

"That happened to us, too," the Doctor nodded. He shot a sideways glance at Sophie, who was staring off into space, catching himself. "Well, it happened to me. On Ford XVII and in quite a few other places and times as well."

"After my TARDIS crashed on that island in Scotland," the other Doctor went on, "it became clear to me that something was fundamentally altering the web of time. I went to find out what."

"Which brought you to Tamworth," the Doctor nodded.

"To my grave," Sophie amended, interrupting for the first time. She didn't look at either of the Doctors.

"Indeed," the other Doctor acknowledged, inclining his head towards her. "That's when I realised what was going on and what was causing the alterations to the timeline."

"Sophie," the Doctor said, under his breath.

"Alive and dead," the other Doctor said, nodding. "Both and neither. Sophie's living in a state of continuous and constant quantum flux. Schrödinger's woman."

"What do you mean?" Geranium interrupting, asking the two Doctors.

"Schrödinger's cat," Sophie supplied.

At Geranium's bewildered expression, the other Doctor said "The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and Schrödinger's work in criticising it are a few million years before Geranium's time."

The older woman quirked an eyebrow. "Not to mention that I'm a professor of history. Physics was never my strong suit."

"A thought experiment run by a German scientist," the Doctor began to explain. "He postulated that, if you put a cat in a lead-lined box and set up a mechanism that would randomly release a flask of poison, until you opened the box there was no way for you to know whether or not the cat was alive. Because of that, and the uncertainty principal, the cat could therefore be said to be both and alive and dead."

"Is that what's happening to me?" Sophie asked, finally looking at the Doctor.

Her eyes carried with them so much hurt, so much disappointment, that he couldn't even bring himself to answer.

The other Doctor answered for him. "It seems so."

"How is that possible?" she asked, turning to him.

The Doctor was irrationally hurt by the way she dismissed him so easily, looking to his counterpart without any of the pain she'd displayed to him. As soon as he'd welcomed her aboard the TARDIS, for her about a week after they'd met for the first time and for him just a matter of hours after that climactic night, the old ship had recognised that Sophie's place in the web of time was somewhat muddied.

It had displayed the exact same newspaper article that Sophie herself had found in the Geranium Collection archives a few minutes before and had even acted a little queasy.

He regretted bitterly having lied to her for so long and he'd always intended to find out exactly what was happening to her but he'd put it off time and time again. He had to admit to himself that he'd gotten distracted. He'd spent so many years alone that having a travelling companion again was novel and singularly exciting.

He'd wanted to impress her. He'd wanted to be a hero again.

He turned back in to the other Doctor's explanation. "After I arrived here, Geranium took me the Timestream."

"The Timestream?" Sophie repeated.

"One of the Collection's proudest achievements," Geranium answered. "Since the Collection is located at a still point in space and time, it gives our researchers a perfect vantage point to study and examine the passage of time and to ferret out the source of any alterations to that passage."

"A timeline," the other Doctor said, nodding. "If time is altered, the Timestream will show us where and when, if not necessarily how or why."

"I had to step away when your Doctor's TARDIS arrived," Geranium explained to Sophie. "I have to say, I was quite surprised to hear that another blue box had materialised on Collection grounds. I thought we were going to have to deal with a serious temporal breach."

"We are," the other Doctor said quietly.

The Doctor had noticed that Sophie had blanched when Geranium referred to him as 'her Doctor', but he put aside his hurt to say "Ordinarily, I wouldn't be able to exist in the same space as, well, myself."

"With some notable exceptions," the other Doctor said lightly.

"Ah, yes, the Game of Rassilon," the Doctor nodded, remembering that particular ordeal. At the time, he'd been in his fifth incarnation. He and his companions at the time had been forced to team up with all four of his younger selves in order to overcome a plot arranged by a power-crazed old Time Lord he'd once considered a friend.

"And that time with the Sontarans," the other Doctor added.

The Doctor smiled at the memory. "Ah, yes. And I have to say, I haven't heard from that chap Omega for a while now."

"Hey," Sophie interjected, genuine emotion again inflecting her tone for the first time since Geranium had revealed the other Doctor to them. "I hate to interrupt your trip down memory lane, but can we please stay on focus?"

Geranium, despite the situation, chuckled.

The Doctor, feeling suitably chastened, nodded. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"We both are," the other Doctor agreed. "Basically, what prevents multiple versions of us from being in the same place at the same time all of the time is the Blinovitch Limitation Effect. Essentially, what it comes down to is a twofold principle: first, that a time traveller can't alter his or her own past and, second, that a time traveller cannot interact with a past or future version of his or her own self."

"And if they do?" Sophie pressed.

"Dangerous energy discharge," Geranium answered. "Basically: boom."

"That's why I've been trying so hard not to touch him," the Doctor told her. "The universe is already damaged enough, it doesn't need me breaking the Blinovitch Limitation on it."

The other Doctor smiled. "In fact, Doctor, the only reason we can even be in the same room is the damage the universe has already suffered."

The Doctor sighed. Any attempt to prevent further damage to the universe at this point, given the extent of the damage currently being done, was pointless. They, the four of them, needed to identify the source of the problem and then figure out how to correct it. "You're right."

"Oh, Doctor," the other Doctor said, teasingly. "Of course I am. I'm you."

Geranium sighed and rolled her eyes. "That's getting a little creepy now, Doctors. Please, if you could keep on the issue at hand."

"Just trying to lighten the mood," the other Doctor said, winking at his former companion.

"Jesus Christ, you are just as bad as him!" Sophie suddenly exclaimed, slapping the top of the table with one hand. With the other hand, she had pointed from the alternate Doctor to the Doctor she'd travelled with for months. "I can't believe the two of you. This is me you're talking. This is my life! And even if it wasn't, it's the rest of the freaking universe! Trillions of lives are at stake, all of space and time and the two of you... the two of you are reminiscing like a pair of dull, tired old men!"

The two Doctors shared a significant look.

"One of you lied to me. Not just once but over and over again. For months. Not just by omission, but explicitly," Sophie went on, looking from one to the other, anger dripping from every syllable. "I will never be able to trust you in the same way again, but that's besides the point. The point right now, the thing that has to dominate your attention, is that I..."

She trailed off and looked away, fresh tears welling in her eyes.

"I'm meant to be dead," Sophie said, blinking away the tears and squaring her shoulders. Both Doctors were about to argue with her, but she lifted a hand to silence them. "And even if I'm _not _meant to be, whatever is causing this is linked to me. Right?"

Neither of the Doctors could disagree.

"Fine," Sophie nodded. "So this is what I know right now. History has recorded that I died as a five year old. Something is disrupting time. I'm alive and I'm twenty years old. Therefore, time has been disrupted and the linking factor is _me_."

"Yes," the Doctor agreed.

"That would seem to be the case," the other Doctor nodded.

"So whatever it is we're dealing with here, it has to include me," Sophie said. "Right? Either me now or me as a five year old."

The other Doctor hung his head. "Yes. Just after Geranium left me at the Timestream, I managed to pinpoint the exact moment of the paradox that caused the web of time to begin to unravel."

Sophie sighed as a rush of remembered images and sensations threatened to overwhelm her. She shut her eyes as tight as she could, seeing herself as a little girl in the back of her parents' car on that fateful day. She could taste the fear, hear the crunching of metal against mental, the shattering of glass. She could smell the spilled blood, feels the flames getting closer.

"Don't tell me," she said, trying hard not to be sick. "Earth. Tamworth, New South Wales, Australia. The second of March, 1996."

"Yes," the other Doctor nodded. "Mid-afternoon."

"Election day," the Doctor she'd travelled with added.

"What's so significant about that time and place?" Geranium, her arms still around Sophie in a comforting embrace, asked.

"That's the day my parents were killed," Sophie answered. "A drunk driver came around the corner too quickly and cleaned them up. Flipped the car. I was in the back seat. They were killed instantly I was trapped until... until someone pulled me out."

The Doctor turned to her. "We've been there before, Sophie."

The other Doctor's eyes widened. "What? When?"

"When we first met," Sophie answered. "We didn't go there physically. A member of the Trickster's Brigade created an alternate universe around me, which collapsed until there was nothing left but my own mind."

"Which was dominated by that memory," the Doctor finished.

"I dreamt about it every night," Sophie said, her voice flat and empty of any emotion.

"Oh, Sophie," Geranium repeated, hugging the young woman tighter. Their initial unease around each other had been replaced by a relationship of sympathy and support. "I can't even imagine how you must feel."

"It all comes down to that moment," the Doctor said.

"Either I live or I die," Sophie concluded, looking from one Doctor to another.

"You live," both Doctors said at once.

The other Doctor took point. "Sophie, I've experienced a world in which you died at that moment. It was wrong. Everything about it was wrong."

"But isn't that true of this world anyway, Doctor?" she said, ignoring his counterpart and instead focusing on the Doctor she'd travelled with. "I mean, all the confusion and the stuff like that. You can't perceive time clearly."

The Doctor sighed, putting his head in his hands and rubbing his temples. It wasn't out of exasperation, though: he was just exhausted and, the others at the table realised, terrified. That realisation tugged at Sophie's heartstrings. Despite what had happened, she realised, he genuinely cared for her.

Still, it wasn't enough to rehabilitate him in her eyes.

"Sophie," the other Doctor said, carefully. "From my perspective, and indeed from yours, you and I have only just met. You need to understand, though, that I... I feel like I've known you for months now because, through him, I have. It's just you... you need to be alive. You need to be."

"Why?" Sophie asked immediately, her tone somewhat harsh.

Both Doctors blinked in surprise. The other Doctor asked, "What do you mean?"

"Why do I have to be alive? Because you said so?" Sophie demanded. "What the hell gives you that power? For months now, you've been keeping the ultimate secret from me and lying to my face about it. What if I was meant to die? What if that's how history was meant to go?"

One Doctor opened his mouth to speak and the other looked off to the side but neither of them could actually bring themselves to answer.

"That's what I thought," she said. "Neither of you know, do you? Look, I have been travelling with you, Doctor, long enough to know that changing the course of history in even the smallest way could have untold consequences."

"That's true," the other Doctor said with a nod. "But Sophie—"

"But nothing," she cut him off. "Right now, neither of you know whether I'm meant to be alive or dead. All of space and time are in danger because of it. Because of me."

"Sophie," the Doctor, her Doctor, started, layering his voice with as much authority as he could manage. "It's not that simple. The paradox causing this damage isn't that you're alive when you should be dead. It's that you're alive _and_ dead."

"And therefore neither," the other Doctor added.

"The cat in the box," Geranium surmised.

"Exactly," the Doctor agreed. "Sophie, as long as history remains unresolved as to the question of your death, you remain in a state of quantum uncertainty. You exist and don't, but the universe abhors such basic ambiguity. That _uncertainty itself_ is the cause of this chaos."

Sophie shook her head. "But I'm just one person. How could uncertainty about me be causing all of this? I'm not that important."

"Don't you see?" her Doctor said, looking at her. "You are!"

"How?" Sophie said, her voice rising.

"Sophie," Geranium said softly. "I know you and I got off on the wrong foot, but you need to listen to what the Doctor is telling you now. I can attest to the fact that, no matter how you may see yourself, you are important. Not just because you have travelled with the Doctor and seen and done the things you've done. You are a person, Sophie Freeman, a living human being. That makes you unique. That makes you important simply as a matter of course."

Sophie nodded, swallowing. She couldn't quite bring herself to believe it, but she put her doubts aside for now. "All right. All right. So what happens now?"

"We... we deal with the crisis," Geranium said. "Right, Doctors?"

"That's right," both Time Lords answered.

"The pattern of destruction was pretty clear," Sophie's Doctor said. "Even from what I saw briefly traveling here. It's radiating out from a specific point in Sophie's timeline, but the effects it's having on the universe are difficult to map."

"Impossible," the other Doctor agreed. "Trust me, I've tried."

"What normally happens when a paradox occurs?" Sophie asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "It's impossible to tell. Sometimes it can cause a fracture in history, through which various creatures can swarm. There can be an explosion. Basically, the laws of time go a bit haywire. Right now, it seems that this particular paradox is causing the web of time to become unravelled on a level that goes far beyond the usually localised chaos."

"Eventually," the other Doctor went on, "even places like this, generally protected from troubles in the Vortex, will be destroyed. By the time that happens, there'll only be one location in the universe left stable enough to travel to: the location of the paradox, like the eye of a storm."

"But if we fix it?" Sophie asked.

"Then everything should be resolved," the Doctor said. He did not smile, however, instead fixing her with a deeply sorrowful gaze.

"And if that means I died when I was five, what will happen to me?" she pressed.

"At this point," the other Doctor said, "we just don't know. Considering what's happening to time and space even as we sit here... you might be kept safe."

Geranium shifted uncomfortably and Sophie understood immediately why. "That's not very likely, is it?"

The Doctors shared a tense glance before her Doctor replied. "No. It's not. In all likelihood, if it turns out you... if it turns out you died there, then, as a five year old, you will fade out of existence. As a time sensitive, aware of and to some extent immune to alterations in history, I will remember you. No one else will."

Sophie squeezed her eyes shut again. Long seconds ticked by as she came to terms with what she'd just heard. Finally, at long last, she opened her eyes and looked around the table. She looked from the other Doctor to Geranium and finally to the man she'd shared all those adventures with, spent all those months travelling alongside.

Emotions battled inside her. Rage, fury, disappointment, sadness and, bizarrely, genuine happiness: she felt honoured, blessed by a God she didn't believe in, that she had come to this place where her very existence hung in the balance with friends by her side.

Suddenly, a queasy feeling overwhelmed her. Her head was killing her. Her eyes snapped wide and she gasped, turning to the Doctors. "What was that?"

They, too, looked uncomfortable, but it was Geranium who was suffering the most. The regal, white-blonde haired woman had reached up to her forehead and, to Sophie's horror, seemed blurred around the edges. She realised that Geranium was beginning to fade away, as were their surroundings.

"What's happening?" she demanded.

The Doctors rushed to their old friend's side as she suddenly regained integrity. She gave a quiet groan and fell to her knees. The Doctors, moving as one in eery symmetry, took her elbows and helped her to her feet.

"It's too late," Sophie's Doctor said. He was on Geranium's left, his counterpart on her right. "Even the Collection isn't safe from the collapse of space-time. Geranium's being erased from history."

"No," Geranium corrected, shaking her head to clear the last of her splitting headache. "I'm not being erased _from_ history. History _itself_ is being erased. I'm just being dragged along with it."

"We need to get back to the TARDIS," the other Doctor warned them.

"Mine's closer," Sophie's Doctor noted. Already, he and the other Doctor were helping their friend towards the exit, Sophie keeping up. "It's just in the corridor outside the archive room."

"What good will getting to the TARDIS do?" Sophie asked as they reached the door.

Opening the hatch and helping Geranium through, her Doctor replied "The TARDIS is dimensionally rarefied. It's interior dimensions exist separately to the rest of space and time. It should be safe from the damage, and it'll keep us safe."

They were out into the archive room now. Dozens of computer terminals were arrayed in concentric octagonal rows around a floor-to-ceiling column of holographic light, which dominated the cavernous chamber. This was one of the Collection's priceless archives, each of which contained the sum of a universe's knowledge.

"We need to evacuate my people," Geranium was saying, and she pulled away from the Doctors. She ran to the nearest console and input a command code in the holographic keyboard that appeared before her.

"Geranium!" the other Doctor bared. "We don't have time!"

"_Professor Wynters,_" came a thin, reedy voice through the intercom as Geranium Wynters shot the Doctor a withering glare. "_Are you harmed? We're experiencing major temporal disruptions._"

"Mr. Hollis," Geranium said, using her most authoritative voice, "I want you to order any and all personnel to the level six corridor as soon as possible. I don't care what they're doing, they must get to that corridor as quickly as they can. Am I understood?"

"_Ma'am?_" Hollis asked, clearly not understanding at all.

"Please, Geranium," the Doctor, Sophie wasn't sure which, insisted, his tone essentially begging. "We need to go."

"I'm not leaving my people behind, Doctor," she insisted. "One of you get Sophie to the TARDIS. I'll join you when I can."

"Geranium—" one of the Doctor's began.

"_Ma'am?_" Hollis repeated, his transmission cutting off the Doctor's sentence. "_What's happening?_"

"Just follow my orders!" she insisted. "Get as many people down here as soon as you can!"

"_Yes, ma'am,_" he said.

Without bothering to clarify any further, Geranium cut the connection. "All right, Doctors, let's go!"

She took a few steps towards the exit when the queasy feeling overwhelmed Sophie's perceptions again. This time it came with a rolling pain. She fell to her knees but was keenly aware of the world fading in and out of focus; the consoles, the archive, the chamber's floor, ceiling and walls and Geranium herself were all slipping away. Only she and the Doctors remained whole; for one horrific moment, she could see a tinge of blue through the far wall as it faded away enough for her to make out the TARDIS on the other side of it.

A sharp, pained scream cut through the buzzing in Sophie's ears. Geranium was in agony.

Then, as quickly as it came, the sensation died away. Geranium was on her hands and knees, sobbing. Sophie couldn't take her eyes off the woman, so stately and serene, reduced to an emotional wreck by the existential terror of being wiped from history.

"It's all right," one of the Doctors said, lifting Geranium to her feet,

The other grabbed Sophie by her elbow and was dragging her towards the exit. It was all happening so fast, it had all been happening so fast, that she'd finally lost track of just what was going on.

She was almost to the exit when she shot a look over her shoulder and saw the other Doctor and Geranium following them. Her Doctor hustled her through the door and they found themselves just a few metres from the TARDIS. The Doctor let go of her arm, running forward and fishing the key from his coat. He unlocked the TARDIS door and beckoned her forward. Geranium and the second Doctor had just gotten through the door.

Then the wave of queasiness struck her again, more forceful than before.

Nausea overwhelmed her and a headache threatened to split her head open. Her knees hit the floor hard enough to drive the breath from her lungs as the entire world faded to white.


	62. The Life and Death of Sophie Freeman: 3

**'The Life and Death of Sophie Freeman'**

3. _Death  
><em>

* * *

><p>Geranium Wynters was floating through a sea of white nothing. The only sensations she could comprehend were a faint queasiness and a throbbing headache. She could sense, but couldn't see, her surroundings; she was in the white-walled corridor that ringed the eight-sided archive chamber. Her father had put everything into the Collection, which was, with the exception of her, his greatest achievement.<p>

Now it was literally being erased from time and space.

She felt almost like a ghost, drifting above the chaos and looking down on it all. She couldn't see anything, though; couldn't hear, couldn't taste, couldn't smell or feel.

Unbidden, memories of her years spent travelling with the Doctor came to her mind. She'd seen so much, experienced so much, had the opportunity to visit all of time and space, and yet the universe was so vast, so trackless and enormous, that she had seen and experienced so little. Now it was all disappearing.

She was an old woman, yes, but she was not ready to give up. Not yet. Getting into the TARDIS, the Doctor's magical, unimaginable ship, would mean she was safe. She had friends relying on her; both Doctors, Sophie Freeman, her staff.

Geranium forced her lungs to suck in another breath and the universe regained its reality.

"Geranium!" the Doctor nearest to her shouted.

"I'm fine," she said, waving him away. "I'm fine."

She pulled herself up to her feet and took stock of their surroundings. The TARDIS was only a few metres away, its door wide open. The other Doctor seemed to be inside, but Sophie was passed out at the base of the tall, blue box that the TARDIS, which, by virtue of a piece of technology called the chameleon circuit, was meant to have a variable outer shell, seemed to have chosen as its permanent exterior.

"Get Sophie," Geranium told the Doctor. "Get her into the TARDIS."

"I will," he answered. "If you come with me."

"I will," she said, echoing his words. "But I'm not getting aboard until at least some of my staff get here."

"Geranium, we won't be able to take them with us," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "Don't you see? We can't risk disrupting the timeline any further!"

"We can take them with us, Doctor," Geranium spat. "You know we can! You have plenty of space in the TARDIS, and you yourself said that the interior dimensions are protected. Or the other you did at any rate."

"Geranium, please," the Doctor insisted. "Please. Come with me now. If the waves succeed in destroying this place, I won't be able to help you. No one will."

She smiled at him. "Doctor, you know me."

"Yes," he admitted. "I do."

"You know that when my mind's made up, I don't change it. I can't just leave this place. Not after everything myself and my father have poured into it. Not without at least some of my staff. I owe it to them," she insisted. "They'd never abandon me."

"Ma'am!" came a shouted voice.

The Doctor and Geranium turned to behold a small group of people, mostly human men and women with a pair of green-skinned reptilians bringing up the rear, running towards them. They were wearing comfortable, silver-hued uniforms and they all seemed relieved to see Geranium. Behind them, the other Doctor had retrieved Sophie and brought her into the ship.

The first man to reach them was a tall, thin, balding gentleman.

"Mr. Greeley," Geranium said, grinning. "This is the Doctor. He's our ticket out of here."

Mr. Greeley, his chest heaving from what the Doctor guessed had been a long dash to this location, nodded at the Doctor. "I'm chief art historian, Doctor."

"That's lovely," the Doctor said dismissively, nodding towards the TARDIS. "Now, please, get aboard my ship as quickly as you can."

"That's a ship?" Greeley said, arching an eyebrow in disbelief.

"She's bigger than she looks," Geranium insisted. "Now go!"

Greeley headed towards the TARDIS just as the next wave of escapees reached them. Geranium smiled, prepared to greet them, when another wave of queasiness drowned out her perception of the world. This time, she couldn't hold down her lunch... but that hardly mattered, for by the time the bile passed her lips it was purely theoretical.

The corridor and the people running towards her disappeared as though sliding down a slope.

"No!" she roared and was genuinely surprised that she still had a voice. This wasn't like the previous experiences she'd had; the world had vanished, but she was certainly still physically present.

She spun around. The Doctor stood there, the TARDIS visible behind him. Greeley, it seemed, had disappeared

"What happened?" she demanded.

"The Collection is gone," the Doctor answered, and though he said the words simply as a statement of fact, her trained ear detected the sorrow and apology suffusing them. "We have to leave now."

Faint shimmers seemed to coalesce around her. They resolved into a ghostly recollection of the corridor and of the people running toward her.

"What am I seeing?" she asked the Doctor.

"The last echoes of the physical universe as it existed in this place," the Doctor answered. "Come on, Geranium, please, we have to go now."

As if to underscore his point, the familiar sound of the TARDIS engines began to sing out; starting with an impossibly deep, almost subsonic boom, they began to cycle upwards as a wheezing, grinding cry rose in pitch to become almost deafening. For years, the sound of those engines had brought her the purest, most total joy she could have imagined possible.

Now, it cut into her blade.

"I can't," she said at long last. "I just can't."

"You're being unravelled, Geranium. The only reason you still exist is that the time you spent travelling with me made you a complicated event in space and time," the Doctor explained, his tone becoming one of pleading desperation. "We have to leave now."

She offered him a small, quiet smile. Gone was the regal, unflappable woman he had known for years. She'd always been outwardly cool and yet, inwardly, had been a roiling ball of fire. Now he was looking at a woman utterly at peace with herself and with her place in history which, she now realised, was literally non-existent.

"You go, Doctor."

"Geranium," the Doctor pleaded, his voice cracking. "Please. Come with me."

"You're Sophie's Doctor, aren't you?" Geranium said, genuinely curious. The TARDIS engines were still pulsing up, getting louder and louder. "The one that has travelled with her, I mean. That's why you can't let me go."

"Yes," he answered quietly. "And I can't lose the both of you. Not today."

Geranium smiled. "You aren't going to lose her, Doctor. You're going to go back to where all this started and you're going to save her. You're going to save her and set all this right. Now hurry, the TARDIS is going to leave without you."

"Come, Geranium," he said, and she saw tears shining in his eyes. "Please."

"Oh, you beautiful man," was all she said in response. "I'll see you soon."

Then she was gone. It was almost like a breath of air washing her away: one second she was there and the next she had simply vanished.

"Come on you two!" the Doctor heard his own voice roar from the TARDIS doors.

Sighing, casting one last look at where his old friend had been standing a moment before, the Doctor turned and ran back to his ship. He slipped inside and slammed the door shut behind him, clicking the lock shut, just as the light atop the TARDIS reached its brightest glow and the blue box finally faded away.

* * *

><p>The Doctor took a deep breath and rested his head against the facsimile wood door for the briefest of moments.<p>

"Where is she?" he heard his doppelganger ask as he slammed down one last lever and set the TARDIS into a cruising flight.

Turning back to face the interior of the console room, with its high, vaulted ceilings and roundel-studded bulkheads that seemed suffused with an intrinsic glow, the Doctor countered with "Where's Sophie?"

"I'm here," came a tired-sounding voice.

The Doctor saw Sophie sitting on the old, faded armchair beneath the raised console tier. The Doctor heaved a relieved sigh. Sophie herself was studiously avoiding his gaze.

"Where's Geranium?" his duplicate pressed.

The Doctor sighed as he headed his way up the ramp towards the console. He saw Sophie stand and ascend the short flight of stairs to join them on the glass-floored dais.

"Where is she?" the other Doctor continued. "What happened?"

"She stayed behind," the Doctor told him. Quietly, resignation suffusing every word, he said "She stayed behind."

Sophie had joined them by this point, but they didn't look at her, instead sharing a uncomfortable moment of mutual grief. The other Doctor rapped a knuckle on the TARDIS console. Sophie wanted to reach out and comfort both of them but she couldn't bring herself to; the betrayal was still too raw, its reality still too cruel.

"We'll get her back," the Doctors said together. They couldn't help but grin.

"You two are bloody hopeless," Sophie said. "You just lost your friend, a wise, courageous woman and the two of you are already smiling about it. Of course you lied to me, you don't have any clue how to deal with grief!"

"Sophie," one Doctor began.

"Please," the other went on.

"No," Sophie said, shaking her head. "Let's move on."

The two Doctors shared a glance. The Doctor closest to the console nodded once and flicked a switch, activating the scanner. As he swung the screen to face them, the three clustered around it.

"Before we the Collection was destroyed," the first Doctor said, "I downloaded as much of the information in active memory as I could, including the file on display Timestream. While I was waiting for you, I input coordinates and took the opportunity to cross-reference the Timestream file with the TARDIS' recent destinations."

"What does this have to do with anything?" Sophie sighed. "We know where the problem is, why don't we just go there?"

"But we don't know how to get there," the second Doctor said. "The Vortex is being chewed up and spat out. The ordinary paths we could take have been shredded. So we need to examine the Vortex, which means looking at the Timestream and studying the TARDIS' own flight paths. We'll backtrack most of the way to where we need to go."

Sophie gave a mirthless chuckle. "Even when everything's ending, you still make no sense."

"That made perfect sense," both Doctors said together.

Hoping to avoid another trip down memory lane, Sophie decided to interject before they went any further. "Okay, so what did you find?"

One of the Doctors, Sophie wasn't sure which, hit a button on the console and an image of multicoloured overlain lines appeared on screen. It looked almost like an insanely proportioned wireframe shape, but it continued to distort. Oddly, misshapen black spots, like cancers, studded the diagram at various points.

"What are those?" Sophie asked, pointing to one of the spots and then the other.

"They're null points," one of the Doctors told her. "These are fracture points, where history started to fall apart first. In order to get to where we need to go, we'll need to swing past them."

"Where are they?" she asked, frowning.

"This one here," the same Doctor said, pointing to the one nearest the upper right hand corner, "is what used to be the planet Ford XVII."

"What?" Sophie said, eyes wide.

"This one here," the other Doctor informed her, pointing to a spot at the rough midpoint of the screen. "Is Earth in the early seventeenth century. This one here is New Tokyo. This is Mars. This is Kar-Charrat."

"And this one," the first Doctor said, pointing to the largest of the bunch, "is the Geranium Collection."

"It's everywhere we've been," Sophie finally surmised. "All the planets and times we've visted."

"Exactly," the other Doctor agreed. "Wherever you and I have spent any significant amount of time, a new fracture has formed. It's from these points that the waves have been radiating, perhaps backwards and forwards through history even before we got there."

"It was traversing one of those points that shut the TARDIS down a few weeks ago," a Doctor said.

"And led to that mess with the Protocol," the other agreed.

"This is going to be a difficult trip," the first said.

"We can handle it."

Sophie sighed again, not sure that she could. Turning away, she went over to the railing that ringed the raised dais dominated by the console. The control room seemed darker than normal, the light glowing from the bulkheads seemed muted, constrained. Only the blue-green gleam of the enormous time rotor that stretched from the top of the console to the ceiling high above glowed as brightly as normal.

"Doctors," Sophie said, cutting into their conversation, "what's happening to the TARDIS?"

Both Doctors stopped speaking and turned around to look out at the console room. Their faces fell theatrically in what would have been, under any other circumstances, a hilarious display of symmetry. Now, though, it was just scary.

"She's dying," one of them said.

"Fading away."

Sophie could have cried. "I thought we were safe in here."

"We are," one Doctor said.

The other Doctor corrected: "We _were_."

"The TARDIS is outside of the universe," the first Doctor explained, "but not entirely separate from it. So extreme is the damage to the greater universe that it's damaging the TARDIS simply as a matter of course."

"So what do we do?" Sophie said. "If the TARDIS is destroyed..."

"It won't be destroyed," one of the Doctors said. "She'll lose power and eventually drift through the Vortex until the internal dimensions begin to collapse."

"Then we'll be stuck here," the other added with a sigh. "We'll be trapped in the Vortex, with nothing to do and nowhere to move. If we're lucky, we'll starve to death or dehydrate before the collapsing dimensions crush us."

"Then we have to move," Sophie said, looking from one Doctor to the other. "Now."

One of the Doctors, and she had a funny feeling it was the one she'd travelled with, grinned. That grin made her want to punch him in the face, considering everything that had happened and was going to happen in the coming hours and days, but it still have her hope. He was still the Doctor, after all, and for all the lies he was still her friend. "Right you are," he said, and spun around to the console.

"What are you _doing_?" the other Doctor explained as Sophie's Doctor slammed down a lever.

The engines started up again, the time rotor moving up and down. On the scanner screen, a small blue, pulsating dot that signified the TARDIS began to spin into the diagram which now began to rotate and fluctuate.

The room bucked around them, nearly throwing them all to the deck. Sophie grabbed onto the railing, holding it as tight as she could, while both Doctors clung to the edge of the console. Suddenly, the room dipped dangerously to the right. Sophie's feet fell out from under her, but she managed to maintain her grip on the railing. One of the Doctors wasn't so lucky; he lost his grip and slammed into the deck, hard enough to knock the wind from him. He began to slide along the deck towards the edge of the dais.

"Doctor!" Sophie cried.

She watched helplessly as he slipped off the edge of the raised tier but she didn't hear the sickening crunch of him hitting the deck below. Instead, she realised, he had regained composure quickly enough to hold on to the edge of the platform.

"I'm okay!" he called.

"Hold on tight!" the other Doctor interjected as the roomed seemed to flip over; for one scary moment, Sophie was dangling with her feet pointed towards the ceiling, suspended from the railing. Several of the roundels that punctuated the bulkheads exploded in sparks before the TARDIS regained its composure. Sophie heard him shout, "Poor old girl!"

The Doctor hanging off the edge was thrown back onto the deck, as was Sophie, but now a section of the console seemed to explode, throwing the Doctor that had been piloting the TARDIS clear over the railing.

He wasn't as lucky as his counterpart, hitting the floor below.

"No!" she cried, peering over the edge.

The other Doctor wasted no time, running to the console and holding down a crucial lever before it could flick back up and throw the ship out of the Vortex. "I've got the TARDIS, you get the Doctor!" he called to her. "I'll keep her as steady as I can."

Sophie stood, ignoring the aches and pains from being bounced around and dashed for the ramp. She hadn't been able to see the Doctor who had slipped out of her view. Hitting the deck below, she turned on her heel. Roundels were still exploding in cascades of sparks and the deck was still shaking beneath her feet but everything seemed stable.

She saw the Doctor, a large, dark, prone form and ran towards to him when the TARDIS bucked unexpectedly. She slipped, falling to one knee. She gave a cry of pain but bit her lip and refocused herself. Pushing herself up, she stepped forward again, more tentatively than before.

"Are you okay?" she heard the Doctor cry from above.

"I'm fine!" she barked back, running the last few steps to where the Doctor lay. He lay face down but groaned and shifted as she approached. "Doctor!"

"Sophie," he answered, sounding dazed.

She rolled him over, kneeling beside him. His coat was singed and he was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, but other than that he seemed unhurt.

"I've got you," she said, helping him to sit up. "Come on."

He tried to stand, but one of his legs collapsed beneath him immediately, sending him sprawling to the deck. He gave a cry of pain and said, voice pained and breath ragged, "Broken leg."

Sophie looped her arm around his waist and propped him up. "We'll get you back up to the console, Doctor. You'll be fine."

As she touched his stomach, though, he winced. "I don't think so, Sophie."

"Doctor?" she said, taken aback.

To her horror, she saw blood seeping from between his clenched lips. "A few broken ribs. Damaged organs."

Her face fell. "No. You can't die."

"I won't die, remember?" the Doctor said with a grimace. "I'll regenerate."

"You can't regenerate, then," Sophie insisted. "If you do, you'll... you'll won't be you anymore! I need you now, Doctor, the whole universe needs you!"

The Doctor pointed upwards, to the upper side of the dais where the other Doctor was still manipulating the controls. "Even if I regenerate, Sophie, you'll still have me. He's right upstairs."

"He still isn't you," Sophie said, her voice cracking.

Another cascade of sparks lit the darkness of the control room as a bulkhead exploded inwards, the roundels collapsing upon themselves. The sudden brilliance illuminated the Doctor's sorry smile. "When we land, the TARDIS' interior dimensions will begin to collapse immediately. I can hold off the collapse long enough for you and the other Doctor to get out of here."

"I won't leave you," Sophie said. "You still owe me!"

The Doctor laughed, but it obviously pained him. "Yes, Sophie. I do. When we land, do what the Doctor... what I tell you to. It'll be difficult, but you can get through it. Together, the two of you can save the universe."

"Hold on!" came the other Doctor's warning cry.

The Doctor and Sophie lunged for one of the pylons supporting the console platform as the TARDIS went through another flip. They reached the pylon just in time to avoid being sent flying, and for a few brief seconds Sophie felt her stomach drop through the floor as the ship's artificial gravity fought to reassert itself.

As the vessel righted, Sophie helped the Doctor up the ramp to the raised platform. It was slow going, made difficult by the Doctor's injuries and even more difficult because of the smoke and steam that now filled the upper levels of the cavernous chamber. Finally, they reached the console.

"Where are we?" the Doctor demanded of his counterpart.

"We're coming in on the final destination now," the other Doctor replied. He pointed to the scanner screen before noticing the Doctor's weakened physical state. "What happened to you?"

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, but a few dust-like motes of golden light escaped his lips.

The other Doctor's face fell. "You're regenerating."

"Not the first time a fall in the console room has triggered a regeneration," the Doctor said, having to nearly shout over the whine of the engines.

"Doctors!" Sophie warned; another section of the console exploded a second later, shattering the gramophone that dominated one of its six sides. The two Doctors covered their faces, but a burst of coolant filled the air.

"When we land," the injured Doctor shouted, "I'll hold the ship together for as long as I can. Get Sophie out of here."

"I will," the other Doctor assured him. "Thank you."

The first Doctor gave a cry of pure agony, more energy escaping his mouth as he fell to his knees. He held his stomach tightly and squeezed his eyes shut. "I can't stop the regeneration!"

"I know," the other Doctor said, and went to pat his doppelganger on the shoulder. Remembering the Blinovitch Limitation Effect, he prevented himself from doing so. "Just hold on, old friend. Hold on."

He rushed to the console again, holding down a lever and flicking a few more switches. The rotor continued its pulsating flashing, moving up and down as the engines gave one last screaming whine. As if in protest, he rotor shattered and the console room went pitch black.

The engines finally shut down and just before the scanner screen cracked and went dark, it showed that the TARDIS had reached its destination.

In the sudden unearthly quiet that suffused the console room, Sophie could only hear her own breathing and that of the wounded Doctor. Before she knew what was happening, she felt a hand close around her elbow and drag her towards the only remaining source of light; the windows set into the top of the TARDIS doors.

"Doctor!" she shouted, looking through the blackness for her wounded friend.

Red emergency lights flickered on, plunging the chamber into a crimson twilight. One of the Doctors, the uninjured iteration, was pulling her towards the doors; the other was standing at the console. He was clearly injured, golden light seeming to pour from the skin of his hands. He shot a look at her over his shoulder.

"Doctor!" she shouted to him.

Before he could answer, a bone-shattering bang rang through the TARDIS. Another and another and another followed. Sophie realised what was happening immediately. The TARDIS' interior dimensions were collapsing. A deep resounded bell echoed through the ship, over and over again.

"Go, Sophie!" he called to her. "Save the universe! Only you can."

The other Doctor barrelled shoulder-first into the TARDIS doors, knocking them open. Sophie was dragged outside with him. The last thing she saw before they swung shut again was the Doctor, her Doctor, surrounded by a halo of particulate golden light.

She took a deep breath and realised she was standing in the middle of a beautiful late summer day. There was not a cloud in the sky over a pretty suburban street and the only sign that anything was amiss was the strange blue box that sat on a street corner.

Sophie Freeman began to cry.

* * *

><p>The TARDIS, his home, was dying around him. Worse still, he was dying. As the interior dimensions of his miraculous vessel collapsed, he looked at his hands. They were glowing as regeneration energy poured through him, every cell of his body being rewritten on the molecular level.<p>

He flung his arms out as the regeneration overtook him. All he could hear was the rush of energy and the clanging of the cloister bell.

His last thoughts as the TARDIS finally collapsed around him were of Sophie.


	63. The Life and Death of Sophie Freeman: 4

**'The Life and Death of Sophie Freeman'**

4. _Life  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>FRIDAY MORNING<br>1 MARCH, 1996**

* * *

><p>"Turn the bloody radio off, Matt," Sarah Freeman said as she stacked the breakfast dishes on the washboard beside the sink. "I've had enough of that crap."<p>

"You said a bad word!" the little girl standing in the kitchen doorway yelled at the top of her lungs before Sarah's husband answered.

"Dibber dobbers wear nappies," the tall, handsome Matthew Freeman teased as he stepped into the kitchen from the lounge room, ruffling his daughter's hair as he went by. He was dressed in a fairly stylish but still quite generic grey suit, his hair cropped disconcertingly short for a wife used to seeing him with a mullet.

"Wet ones, too," Sarah added, sticking her tongue out at her young daughter.

Sophie Freeman cackled and ran off into the lounge room.

"And put your uniform on!" Sarah shouted after her as Matt switched off the radio on the counter next to the fridge. He sidled over to his wife and planted a kiss on the top of her head. She was a slight woman, with curly brown hair pulled back into a loose ponytail and big green eyes.

He always marvelled at just how much she resembled their daughter.

"It's important, Sarah," he admonished. Looking at his reflection in their fancy new chrome toaster, he adjusted his tie. "This election is going to change the country."

"Yeah, and bloody Howard is going to be P.M.," she answered. "God help us when that happens."

"Your mother would roll over in her grave hearing you say that," Matt said, running a hand through his hair.

"Yeah, well, that old bitch never got over Menzies," Sarah said, her tone light enough to emphasise that she was telling a joke.

"And you never got over Gough," Matt teased.

"Maintain the rage, love," Sarah said as she finished putting away the breakfast dishes. "Maintain the rage."

She walked over to her husband, who straightened as she approached. Taking the lapels of his suit, she leant up to kiss him on the lips. "Your hair looks good, love," she said, reaching up to brush the bristles that remained. "Very manly. Stop fiddling with."

"I feel like a kid with lice," was Matt's response.

"Bite your tongue," she admonished. "The last thing we need in this house is a kid with lice."

Matt's eyes widened. "Don't tell me there's been another outbreak at the school."

"Not since the last one," Sarah said, laughing. "Jenny Watson's four got the worst of that. She spent a fortune on that foul shampoo."

Matt laughed. "All right, well, I better get going."

"I'll drop you off," Sarah promised him, "as long as Sophie's ready in the next fifteen minutes."

"Talk about a pipedream," Matt said as Sarah ducked out of the room to find where he daughter had gotten to.

Their house was pretty small, an old cottage built in the forties on a wide block of land with a clothesline out the back and no fences boxing it in. In that way, it was like a lot of other houses on the outskirts of the town of Tamworth, located in regional New South Wales; everything was small, simple, but open.

The house itself was fairly simple, with a corridor splitting it in two, leading from the front door right the way to the back door. Along one side were the three bedrooms and the bathroom, and on the other side was the living room and the linoleum-coated kitchen. It wasn't much, but it was the best Matt and Sarah could afford, especially since they had to look after Sophie.

Sarah found her daughter in the little girl's bedroom, resolutely refusing to get dressed. Instead, she was still wearing her pyjamas and playing with a plastic dinosaur that Sarah didn't recognise.

"Oh, God, Sophie, get dressed will you?" Sarah demanded as she entered, planting her hands on her hips. "Your father and I have to leave the house in exactly ten minutes."

"But mum—" Sophie began, but Sarah's raised hand brooked no argument.

"But nothing, love," Sarah countered. "Get your uniform on, quick sticks."

It took Sophie almost precisely ten minutes to get ready, by which time Matthew was standing at the door tapping his wristwatch. Looping the pink plastic backpack over her daughter's arms, Sarah aimed a playful punch at her husband as she hustled her family out the door.

Their small white car sat on the dirt driveway that went up past their house.

"Morning, Matt!" came a bright cry from across the way. Their neighbour was loading up his ute before he, too, headed off to work.

Harry Daniels was a tall, burly man that seemed to think Matt, an officeworker, was less of a man than he, a bricklayer. He was a sexist, Neanderthal pig that Sarah wanted nothing to do with. Still, he was polite enough, so the Freemans waved back.

"Coming over for that election barbecue tomorrow afternoon?" he called.

"We'll see, mate," Matt answered.

Sarah got to the car and helped Sophie into the back seat, strapping her daughter in and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"Mum!" Sophie protested, wiping away saliva that wasn't there.

Sarah and Matt slid into the front seats and Sarah inserted the key into the ignition. As the car's engine tripped and came to life, Matt held up his hand. "Can you hear that?" he asked.

A deep, oddly pitched thrum sounded in the distance. It was a keening, scraping grind of a noise. Sarah and Matt exchanged puzzled expressions, but as quickly as the sound had started it stopped.

"Weird," Sarah said, before putting the car from park into reverse and backing out of the driveway onto Southview Street.

* * *

><p>The Doctor felt rather than saw his other self disappear in a wave of regeneration energy. He could hear only the clanging of the TARDIS' cloister bell and the crash of its collapsing interior dimensions for a few seconds, before the golden light that shone from the windows set into the TARDIS doors went suddenly dark.<p>

Then, for the longest time, all he could hear was Sophie's sobs.

He looked at the young woman, standing between him and the TARDIS. She was clutching her shoulders and shivering but was still upright, her eyes wide open. The Doctor, at least in the timeline he was currently experiencing, had only truly met her a few hours before but he felt like he'd known her for years.

He was impressed by her strength, her resilience, by the way she had so bravely borne the responsibility the web of time had foisted on her.

He stepped forward, resting a calming hand on her shoulder. She jerked away immediately, as if his touch burned her. He couldn't help but feel hurt.

"Is he gone?" she said quietly. "The Doctor. Is he gone?"

The Doctor sighed. "I'm here, Sophie."

"You're not him," she replied. "You look like him, you sound like him, you might even have been him once upon a time, but you're not him. Not really. My Doctor just... died, didn't he? Or regenerated or whatever it is you call it."

The Doctor sighed and shook his head. "I'm afraid it's not that simple, Sophie."

"What happened to him?"

"The same thing that happened to Geranium and the rest of the universe," the Doctor said and stepped around her, pushing open the TARDIS doors. Inside, instead of the familiar interior of the console room was... the interior of a police box. Wood and glass and shadow. No sign of the inner dimensions that had made the TARDIS so miraculous.

Sophie gasped. "What the hell..."

The Doctor, when he spoke, sounded absolutely devastated. "I knew it was coming I just... I never thought I'd see her like this again."

"Can you fix it?" Sophie asked.

"There's nothing there to fix," the Doctor answered. "The universe... the universe is gone. If we succeed in setting history right, it should all reboot and the TARDIS will be restored along with everything else. If we don't, the universe will continue to shrink until it disappears into the Vortex forever. There's a small bubble of continuous reality, and we arrived on the very periphery of that bubble."

"When exactly?" Sophie asked as the Doctor shut the TARDIS doors.

"No more than a day or two before the event," the Doctor answered. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a familiar TARDIS key. He laughed bitterly as he realised what he was doing. "No point to locking her up, I suppose. There's nothing inside her anyway."

Sophie ignored him, instead surveying the street they'd landed on. Small houses on large blocks of land predominated and very few of them had fences. The TARDIS had landed on a street corner, and she looked up to see the aluminium signs bolted to nearest light pole. They were on the corner of Macgregor and Mack Streets.

A pit opened in her stomach. She recognised these streets, but it wasn't a clear memory. More of a primal understanding of her surroundings, half-remembered and barely real. She recognised them from when she was a little girl.

"Doctor," she said, quietly. "We're in Tamworth. We lived around here."

"Oh, Sophie," he said but didn't dare touch her again.

She shook her head, clearing away the crush of emotions were threatening to overwhelm her. So much had happened to her in the last day but she was just one person and countless trillions of lives were depending on her and the Doctor.

"We need a plan," she said after a few moments.

The Doctor nodded. "Yes. You're right. First thing's first, we need to figure out exactly when and where we are."

"How are we going to do that?"

The still silence of the morning was interrupted as a filthy ute turned into Mack Street and started rumbling towards them. The Doctor smiled. As the ute drew closer, the Doctor stepped out onto the road and raised his hand.

The driver of the ute, hurtling along at a speed at least ten kilometres over the speed limit, saw the Doctor and slammed on the brakes, coming to a stop just a few metres from the tall Time Lord. Sophie's jaw dropped open as the driver let loose with a string of swear words. He leapt from the car and advanced on the Doctor menacingly.

"I beg your pardon, sir," the Doctor said and reached into his coat, pulling out a slim leather wallet. "But I'm whatever it says on this."

The man took the wallet thrust in his face and opened it to read the psychic paper. His eyes widened. "Ah, oh, I'm sorry, Your Royal Highness, sir," he said, sounding utterly bewildered as he wiped suddenly sweaty hands on his paint-splattered wifebeater. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Oh, you know, just looking around," the Doctor said, and Sophie was still too flabbergasted to join in the conversation. "Tell me, my good man, when and where are we exactly? And I mean for you to tell me where we are as precisely as you can manage."

"Uh," the man said, looking from the Doctor to Sophie and back again. "Who's she?"

"She's my..." the Doctor looked at Sophie, trying to figure out the most convenient lie. "She's my research assistant."

"What would the King of Siam need with a research assistant?" the man asked, clearly still without any idea what was happening to him.

"The King of Siam?" the Doctor repeated quizzically, snatching the psychic paper back off him and reading it quickly. His eyes widened in surprise. "Okay, fine. Of course I am. I have a research assistant because I... carry out research. Into Australian... _things_."

The man looked oddly proud. "Well, all right then. It's just after eight thirty in the morning."

"What's the day?"

"Friday the first."

"And the month?"

At this, the man looked vaguely insulted. "It's March."

"And the year?" the Doctor pressed.

"Now hang on a minute, Your Highness," the man said, drawing himself up to his full, less-than-impressive height.

"Your Majesty," the Doctor corrected off-handedly.

The man's face went bright red, bordering on purple, and he seemed to be about to explode. "Just what do you mean by asking me what year it is? I'm sure back in Siam everyone makes jokes about how stupid Australians are, but I won't tolerate it! Y'hear?"

At this, Sophie finally interjected herself. "Listen, mate, back where he comes from, they have a different calendar!"

The man blinked. "You're Australian. Not Siamese."

"Yes, I am," she said, arcing up as best she could. "Now, are you going to answer his question or not?"

Obviously confused, the man finally managed to say "It's 1996."

Sophie knew the answer was coming, but she still didn't want to hear it. 1 March, 1996. In a little over a day, her parents would be dead... and, potentially, so would she.

"Thanks very much," the Doctor said, patting the man on the shoulder. "You've done a great service to both our countries. What was your name, dear sir?"

"Uh," he answered, looking from Sophie to the Doctor, mouth working soundlessly. "Harry Daniels."

"Thank you very much, Harry Daniels," the Doctor said, and gently turned him around towards the ute. A few moments later, he'd restarted his vehicle and driven on. The Doctor beheld his psychic paper. "The _King of Siam_? I mean, honestly. Either he's got a musical theatre obsession or you need a tune-up. Or he's just a moron who doesn't that know that Siam became Thailand in 1939. He's probably just a moron."

It was then he noticed that Sophie looked like she'd seen a ghost.

"Sophie?" the Doctor prodded. She didn't answer, simply continuing to stare off into the middle distance, her face suddenly ashen. "Sophie, what is it?"

"That's him," she said quietly. "That's the man."

"The man?" the Doctor repeated. "Which man?"

"The man driving the other car," Sophie clarified and the Doctor realised she was shaking. "Harry Daniels was the drunk driver that hit my parents' car. He was wasted because of some election day, Howardite celebration thing, came speeding around a corner to quickly and took them off the road. He got twelve years for drink driving, but he died of heart disease in prison."

"Oh," the Doctor said, jaw dropping. "Sophie, I'm so sorry."

"How could it be him?" Sophie said, turning to the Doctor. "I mean, there must be... tens of thousands of people living in this town. Of all of them, why him?"

The Doctor swallowed. "I honestly can't explain it. Maybe it's because the world is literally quite small at this point. Maybe... maybe it's just because of bad luck."

"I feel like someone's walked over my grave," Sophie said with a shiver. "It'd be so easy. We could fix all of this, right now. Just go up to him and... and..."

"And what?" the Doctor asked, suspicious. "Kill him?"

"No!" Sophie said, disgusted he would even suggest it. "Just... I don't know, warn him? Tell him not to drink tomorrow, steal his car keys. Damn it, Doctor, we could sabotage his car tomorrow morning and then he won't be able to drive it at all, let alone crash it."

"And what happens then?"

Sophie blinked. "What do you mean, 'what happens then'?"

"If you did that," the Doctor said, nodding in the direction Harry Daniels had travelled on. "If you did stop him from driving tomorrow, stopped him from..." here he paused, as though searching for the right way to phrase what he was going to say. "Say you did stop him. Say the crash never happened. What happens then? What happens to history?"

She shook her head. "You have no idea do you do, Doctor? Who cares about history! Who gives a damn about any of it! My parents would still be alive."

"Sophie," the Doctor said, stepping forward, "you now how important it is to preserve the web of time."

"Screw the web of time!" she yelled. "Screw all of it! I deserve my parents and that bastard doesn't get to take them away from me. Not again!"

The two of them stared at each other for a long moment, the Doctor's eyes intense and cold, Sophie's blazing with fury and more emotion than the Doctor thought he had ever felt. Finally, at long last, he said "Your parents were meant to die, Sophie."

Sophie's jaw dropped. With a cold, quiet voice, she asked "What?"

"It's a fixed point in history," the Doctor said slowly, as though he were explaining it to a child. "Don't you see? Your death is not a fixed point, it's in flux. But your parents were always meant to die. They were always going to. Nothing can change that."

"How dare you?" Sophie growled. "Who the hell are you to make that decision?"

"I'm a Time Lord!" the Doctor declared, throwing his arms wide. "Of course I can make that decision! I'm all there is! Don't you see? Time and space are not playthings, their rules can't be broken or tossed aside so easily."

"But that's what you've been doing for months!" Sophie insisted. "Ignoring whatever was happening to me while you dragged me all around space and time."

"I wasn't dragging you," the Doctor said under his breath.

"No," Sophie admitted, but there was a sting in her voice. "You're right. You weren't dragging me. _He_ was. The _other_ you. No wonder you can't understand. No wonder you won't even listen. You only met me a few hours ago, you don't know me at all!"

The Doctor was hurt. "Sophie! I am him. He is... he _was_ me. The only difference between us is a slight variation in our personal history."

At this, Sophie fell quiet. "A slight variation? You're talking about me, Doctor. I might only have been the latest in a long line of companions but my absence from his life would not have been a slight variation and he never would have said so. You know what? It's not the laws of time and space you like to flaunt; it's me. My friendship, my personhood. To you, I'm nothing but a boondoggle, a fluctuating point, a problem for you to fix."

"No!" the Doctor began to protest, but Sophie lifted her hand.

"You don't really know me, Doctor," she said, and he was surprised by how calm she seemed. "He did, but he's gone. Maybe my parents are supposed to die but you can't expect me to stand by and do nothing."

The Doctor considered her for a long moment, before he said "No. I don't suppose I can."

Sophie nodded once, locking her jaw and fixing the Doctor with a hard stare. "I'm going to walk away from you now, Doctor. Don't follow me."

She turned on her heel and began to walk away from him, increasing her pace as the distance between them grew. "Sophie," the Doctor called after her, "wait!"

She didn't even look back over her shoulder.


	64. The Life and Death of Sophie Freeman: 5

**'The Life and Death of Sophie Freeman'**

5. _Death  
><em>

* * *

><p>Sophie walked for about an hour before she reached the busy main streets of town. She was guided by half-remembered insights, following roads that were vaguely familiar. It was strange, after so long travelling with the Doctor and visiting ancient Tuscan towns and glittering cities in the far future, to be back in small-town Australia. Impossible skyscrapers had been replaced with small miner's cottages and 1960s tract houses; picket fences and brick walls lined one side of the footpath and parked cars, all plastic-looking and eighties, lined the other.<p>

She attracted no more attention than the sparrows that chittered overhead, and she wondered how long it had been since she'd last actually heard birdsong. She walked down wide, tree-lined streets that had been meant for a horse and cart more than a century ago and smaller streets without footpaths or even a gutter.

Finally, the noise of traffic grew louder and she found herself on the outskirts of the town proper. This place certainly wasn't New Tokyo and for that matter it wasn't even Newcastle, but there was a sizeable and bustling business district, crammed with real estate offices and cafes, news agents and, she noticed, a member of parliament's office, garlanded with election materials: bunting, core flutes, even a massive tarpaulin banner bearing his face and name.

She was reminded once again that Australia's federal election was coming tomorrow. The 1996 election had seen the overturning of sixteen years of Labor Party rule and had ushered in eleven years under the Labor Party's archnemesis, a man named John Howard. She'd never been one for politics and the date of the 1996 election had, of course, carried special meaning for her.

She was halfway down the main street, dodging people carrying their shopping and mothers with prams, when she found herself in a small, well-manicured park. There was a turn of the century bandstand and a war memorial cenotaph. She was struck again by how real all this felt; for a moment she stood there, entranced by the banality of it all.

Her adventures with the Doctor had all been _real_, of course, in the sense that they had actually happened to her, but there was the element of the fantastical to them and she often had difficulty accepting that what had happened had, in fact, truly happened. Maybe that understanding of the unreality of it all was why she'd learnt to handle death so easily. Maybe she was becoming disconnected, immune to the horrors she'd experienced. She shivered as she stared at the war memorial.

Almost a hundred years before her native time, millions of people had been sent to the most destructive war in history up to that point.

She'd been bombarded with stories of Gallipoli as a youth. In 1915, Australia and New Zealand, then still dominions of the British Empire, had committed a large force to an attempted invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula in modern Turkey, then the centrepiece of the Ottoman Empire. The goal had been to allow for access from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea, so Britain and France could more easily supply, and be supplied, by their allies in Russia. In the end, it had been a pointless exercise, a fruitless invasion that instead resulted in the deaths of countless young men on both sides, all for a war that had started because one man had been killed in a city most people had never heard of.

It often seemed to her that people missed the point of ANZAC Day, the public holiday that commemorated the invasion. Maybe it was because she'd lost her parents, but she'd never understood how some people saw it all as glorious.

To her, it was a pointless, devastating slaughter. The individual men were heroes but the cause that had been foisted upon them was not heroic; they'd been sacrificed at the altar of politics and strategy, just as her parents had been sacrificed on the altar of that one man's drinking problem. Rage welled up inside her and, not for the first time since she'd left the Doctor's company, she had the urge to turn around and find Harry Daniels.

She tamped it down.

The Doctor was right. Even though her trust in him had been shaken, the reality was that he knew what he was talking about. As badly as she wanted to save her parents, she had a duty to herself and to the rest of the universe to set right what had gone wrong. Trillions upon trillions of lives, not to mention space and time, depended on what she and the Doctor did now.

Perhaps that was upsetting her more than anything else.

Sighing, she turned away from the memorial and resolved to find a pub. Somewhere to sit and wait until either the Doctor found her or the time came to act.

There was a public house just down the street, a beautiful two-story colonial-era building with a balcony that ringed its upper floor and a beer garden out the back. Inside were a few old pensioners sipping beer and watching the old television mounted behind the bar. A Paul Kelly song she recognised vaguely played on the juke box. The whole scene seemed somehow subdued, which fit her mood perfectly.

Sophie went inside and took a stool at one of the tall tables beside a window. It gave her a perfect view of the street. For a while she just sat there staring, thinking about what she was going to face in the coming hours.

She needed to decide what to do.

Surely there was some way to save her parents and keep history on track. The Doctor had said that they'd arrived in a bubble of surviving space-time, bracketing the paradoxical event. If the paradox revolved around her, then maybe she'd get to choose the form it would take. She was clutching at straws, she knew, but she had to try something. Didn't she owe it to them and to herself? Hell, who knows what her parents would have accomplished had they survived. Maybe she owed it to the world.

She knew she was being selfish. She didn't care.

"Miss?" came a voice, interrupting her revery. She look around and saw that the man behind the bar had come out to greet her. He looked like a friendly guy, solidly built with an easy smile and a balding pate. "How's it going today, love?"

"Uh," Sophie said, unsure what to tell him. The truth? That the universe was ending and she and her erstwhile friend were the only hope anyone had to put it all right? Dismissing that immediately, she decided on a variation. "My... car broke down."

"Bugger," he said, flashing her a sympathetic. "Look, Morris over there used to be a mechanic. Maybe he'll be able to help you out."

"Oh, no, it's fine," Sophie said, shaking her head. "I don't want to bother him."

"It won't be a bother," the man said. "What's your name?"

"Sophie," she answered immediately, blanching when she realised that she probably shouldn't give out too much information. She was, after all, now entangled in her own past.

Sticking out his hand, he introduced himself as Johnno. "Nice to meet you. You're eighteen, aren't you, love?"

"Twenty," Sophie said, smiling. "Don't worry, I'm legal."

"Got any proof of age on you?" he asked.

Sophie's face fell. Her ID was still in her purse, which was in the bag she'd brought with her aboard the TARDIS all those weeks ago. That bag had been aboard the ship when its internal dimensions had collapsed and God only knew where it was now.

"I don't," she said. She decided to stick with the truth. "I lost my bag."

He look at her with a long, hard stare before he shrugged. "If the cops come in, get lost," he said lightly, "but other than that, feel free to hang around as long as you need. I don't suppose you've got any money on you, do you?"

Sophie almost sighed with relief. "No, it was all in my bag."

"Typical," the man said, but there was no annoyance in his tone. "Your soft drinks are on me today, then. Just don't take advantage! And if you want the hard stuff, you'll have to show me some ID."

Sophie grinned. "Thanks, Johnno. I really appreciate it."

"My pleasure," he said, before pointing at one of the beer-sipping men at the bar. The man he signalled to looked like a pleasant old bloke, with big, rough hands. "That's Morris. Go talk to him, he'll be happy to help."

"I will," she lied. "Thank you again."

"I'll bring you a Coke," he promised, before slipping away.

Sophie looked back out the window and almost jumped when she saw a man in a long black coat walk past. The Doctor didn't even glance through the window, instead continuing down the street as though she wasn't even there. She felt like she'd just escaped something horrible.

* * *

><p>No one ever seemed to understand just how difficult it was to pilot the TARDIS. The universe was a big place and the TARDIS travelled in five dimensions, not just the usual four. There were an array of calculations the Doctor constantly had to take into account when he input the coordinates; everything was always moving, after all. Planets orbiting suns, suns orbiting galactic centres, galaxies constantly spinning through the universal place.<p>

Nothing was ever in the same place but it was all predictable. Even the Doctor's Time Lord brain was often frazzled by the infinite equations he had to balance and the endless permutations of their individual factors he had to keep track of. The TARDIS herself wasn't really much help, with a mind of her own and an independent streak to boot.

So, really, it was a miracle he ever managed to get anywhere, especially since most of the time he only ended up a century or two away from where he wanted to go originally anyway. It was to his credit that Rassilon had had the foresight to give the Time Lords an innate sense of direction and it was that sense that the Doctor often had to rely on.

As he wound his way through the streets of Tamworth, the Doctor realised just how useless that sense actually was.

He'd originally tried to follow Sophie, only to lose her after a few turns and end up in a semi-industrial estate. A kind man that had tried to sell him a new tractor, not that the Doctor had an old one to replace anyway, had pointed him in the direction of the town, a grace the Doctor had only been too happy to take advantage of.

Eventually, he'd found his way to the main street. It was just like a lot of other main streets he'd been too, if a little warmer and quieter than most.

He stopped at a news agents and examined a paper. It was, indeed, 2 March, 1996. A Friday. The paper was dominated by election coverage which the Doctor, by and large, wasn't interested in. Democracy was all well and good, but he had bigger things to worry about than the vicissitudes of a fickle electorate.

He was reminded of the time he'd attempted to comfort Winston Churchill after his shock defeat in the election of 1945, even though he'd been quite happy indeed to see his other good friend, Clement Attlee, become prime minister. That had been an interesting day for him: a commiserating bottle of brandy with Winston, followed by a raucous bottle of champagne with Clement.

The Doctor sighed.

Neither Clement Attlee nor Winston Churchill nor the year 1945 existed now. The universe was a shell about sixty hours wide. Beyond that was nothing. None of the people he had passed on the street, not even the woman that had shooed him from the shop after admonishing him that it wasn't a library, knew how dire the situation was.

He began to formulate a plan.

Passing a colonial-style pub, he made a mental checklist of what he had to do to prepare for the coming mission. First things first, he needed to locate Sophie. That brought him up short, though, since she clearly didn't want to be found. Perhaps it would be better to take care of other business first. The Doctor put Sophie out of his mind for a moment: after all, how much more damage could she do to the universe, considering all that had already been done?

All he had with him in terms of technology was the sonic screwdriver, the TARDIS key and his psychic paper, but he needed to construct a device that would be able to locate and predict the exact moment of the universe-destroying paradox he knew was coming.

That would be easy enough, given some electronic components and the time-sensitive nature of the TARDIS key. Unfortunately, he didn't have any electronic components nor did he have a place to build the device. So his first stop was to a bank. At the automatic teller machine, he produced his sonic screwdriver and tricked the device into dispensing a thousand Australian dollars.

He assumed that would be enough and made a mental note to return the money, which he decided to call a loan, with interest once he'd saved the universe.

Next he liberated a shopping trolley from a supermarket car park and when questioned by a man in a fluorescent yellow vest, whose job it seemed was to collect shopping trolleys, the Doctor flashed him the psychic paper and told him he was from the Federal Bureau of Shopping Trolley Inspectors.

"Bloody Labor," the man said, shaking his head. "Wasting money on that nonsense..."

The Doctor ignored him, walking down the street pushing the trolley. After a few minutes, he reached an electronics store. Earth's twentieth century had produced some beautiful pieces of technology, but the plastic hunks he found in there were less than impressive. He got a television, with a distressingly bulbous screen, a VCR and seven clock radios. Handing over money to a bewildered looking clerk, the Doctor thought about explaining what he was doing.

"Found technology," the Doctor said, but the clerk, a teenaged boy with a bad infestation of pimples, just looked at him blankly. Sniffing, incensed, the Doctor said "Whatever." and moved on.

He was armed with money and what passed for technology: now all he needed was a place to set it all up. Luckily, he found a dodgy, run-down motel on the next street corner. Named the King's Arms in what must have been a fit of irony, it was a two-story, horse-shoe shaped building enclosing a car park and an empty concrete pool.

He rented a room, leaving his shopping trolley outside the dingy reception office, and found himself a few minutes later in a small room that smelled of disinfectant and was rather nice, in a shoebox hotel room kind of way. The Doctor instantly got to preparing the electronics he bought, ripping open the boxes and piling the items on one of the small, single beds that populated the double room.

Taking a deep breath, he surveyed his booty. Then he got to work.

Hours passed by as he stripped wires, adjusted circuit boards and realigned transistors. By mid-afternoon, he had seven clock radios that weren't really clock radios anymore, wired into the back of a television that wouldn't ever work like a television again and a VCR that had been opened and had its heads removed and imbued with chronon energy courtesy of the sonic screwdriver. The clocks had been removed from their radios and were arrayed along the top of the television, all linked together and cabled into the television's aerial receiver.

The radios had been reconfigured to receive more than just transmissions on the FM and AM bands. Instead of standard radio transmissions, and with a little help from the sonic screwdriver, they would now receive naturally-occurring transmissions created by bursts of temporal energy.

Finally, the Doctor took his TARDIS key from his pocket and placed it between the energised heads in the de-shelled VCR. With another burst of energy from the sonic screwdriver, they began to shine; arcs of electricity danced between the key and the heads. The key began to glow a brilliant orange and all the screens suddenly flared to life. The television showed a blizzard of static but the clocks all glowed red, the numbers on their faces rapidly changing.

The object of this device was to locate and precisely time the moment of the paradox that had generated this disaster, using the material TARDIS key to tap into the temporal energy that suffused the universe as a matter of course. Proud of the work he'd managed to do, the Doctor stood up and surveyed his creation.

By throwing himself into his work, he had succeeded in keeping his mind off Sophie. Still, she'd been gone for hours and he was becoming concerned about what she might be up to. He decided to find his friend.

* * *

><p>Hours had gone by and Sophie had spent the entire time sitting at her table, occasionally signalling to the bartender for another drink. She had switched from Coke to water a few hours ago and, after waving off help from the retired mechanic Morris, had taken to people watching. She found she had a lot to think about but that she was happier when she didn't think about.<p>

Memories haunted this town; vague recollections of things that she might have dreamt in the fifteen years since her parents had died. Before she'd travelled with the Doctor, before her encounter with the Trickster's Brigade, had forced her to relive and finally come to terms with the accident that had taken her parents from her, she had dreamt of the crash most nights.

She had finally reached a place where she could remember the accident without reliving it, without experiencing the trauma afresh, but being here was reopening old wounds and pouring salt in them.

Sophie realised that she needed a hug.

She briefly considered going off to find the Doctor and, as if on cue, he entered the pub, striding in as though he owned the place, long black coat flapping about his shins. Any thoughts of wanting to see him again immediately vanished. Sophie stood and heading for one of the side entrances.

The Doctor saw her. "Sophie!" he called, but she ignored him.

As she reached the side door, she nearly ran headlong into a man wearing a somewhat crumpled business shirt. He'd evidently just finished work, as he had a tired air about him. Sophie tried to step out of the way, but she misjudged and her ankle came down at an odd angle. Giving a strangled cry of surprise, she fell back. The man caught her wrist and helped right her.

"Bloody hell!" he exclaimed. "Sorry about that! Are you all right?"

"Yeah," Sophie said, glancing over her shoulder and seeing the Doctor slowly picking his way through the patrons towards her. She turned back to the man. "I'm fine."

Then she actually saw the him. Her jaw fell open. She felt as though she'd been punched in the gut. She recognised him on an instinctual level, understanding right away who he was. The last time she'd seen him, he'd been dead and bleeding in the crumpled cabin of a car.

He stuck out his hand. "Matthew Freeman. Nice to meet you."


End file.
